Shintaro Fujinami of the Oakland Athletics

Last week pitcher Shintaro Fujinami, formerly of the Hanshin Tigers, signed a one year contract with the Oakland Athletics.  Fujinami was the ace pitcher at Osaka Toin high school and made a name for himself in the 2012 Summer Koshien tournament, throwing two hit complete game shutouts in the semi-finals and finals to win the championship.  He was picked in the first round of the 2012 draft by four teams - the Tigers, Buffaloes, Marines and Swallows - with the Tigers winning the lottery for him.

Fujinami's story is pretty well known so I'll just hit the highlights (for more information, check out this video from Yakyu Cosmopolitan).  His first few seasons were very good - he went 10-6 with a 2.75 ERA as a 19 year old in 2013 and followed that up with an 11-8, 3.53 ERA season in 2014.  He had an outstanding season in 2015, going 14-7 with a 2.40 ERA.  He led the Central League in strikeouts with 221 and threw seven complete games including four shutouts - both of which also led the league.  His numbers started to fall off in 2016 and he developed control issues.  He's been kind of a mess for the last six years, bouncing between the top team and the farm team a lot although he was the Tigers' Opening Day starter each of the last two seasons.  He made the All Star team four times (2013-2016) and was a member of Samurai Japan for the 2017 World Baseball Classic although he only made one appearance against China in the tournament.

It's been generally felt that he could really benefit from a change of scenery but it's also been felt that the Tigers were reluctant to trade him to another team in Japan because they didn't want him to make them look bad.  Oakland may be a good fit for him and a good chance for him to put it all together again.

His first card was #29 in the 2013 BBM Rookie Edition, the same set containing the first cards of both Shohei Ohtani and Seiya Suzuki.  He also has cards in both 1st and 2nd Version that year as well as the Genesis and Classic sets.  He's got a "Draft Pick" card in the 2013 Calbee set but his first "regular" card isn't until 2014.  He appeared in both of BBM's flagship sets (1st and 2nd Version) each year after that until 2019 when he was only in 1st Version.  He wasn't in either set in 2020 or 2022 but appeared in both sets in 2021.  He's had at least one card in every Calbee set after 2013 as well with the exception of 2020.  He's been in every Epoch NPB set since the first one in 2018.  BBM did an 18 box set called "Go Higher" for him and Shohei Ohtani in 2016.  Here's some of his cards:

2013 BBM Rookie Edition #29

2013 BBM 1st Version #130

2014 Tigers Original Player Card #04

2015 BBM Tigers #M02

2016 Calbee #198

2017 Topps Now Japan Team Set #JPN-10

2018 Epoch One #557

2019 Icons - Teenage Memories #35

2020 BBM Tigers #T07

2021 Calbee #OP-08

2022 Topps #119