Next up for the retirement posts is longtime Fukuoka Softbank Hawk third baseman Nobuhiro Matsuda. Matsuda was the Hawks top pick out of Asia University in the university/corporate league portion of the 2005 draft although he wasn't exactly drafted - he was signed by the Hawks as part of that weird system where an amateur player could come to an agreement with a team. The Hawks didn't have a first or second round pick in that portion of that year's draft because they signed him before the draft.
He made his ichi-gun debut as the starting third baseman on Opening Day. 2006, the first rookie to start on Opening Day for the Hawks since Hiroki Kokubo twelve years earlier. He didn't have a particularly good year, though, hitting just .211 in 62 games and being banished to the farm team in mid-June. He started 2007 on the farm but played well enough to earn the starting role again late that season and by 2008 he had established himself firmly as the Hawks' starting third baseman, a position that when healthy he would hold for the next 13 years or so.
Like Seiichi Uchikawa, Matsuda was an integral part of the Hawks dynasty of the 2010's. He never hit for as high an average as Uchikawa but he had much more power - hitting over 20 home runs seven times and over 30 three times in the nine year span between 2011 and 2019. His best season was probably 2015, when he hit .287 with 35 home runs and 94 RBIs. He had somewhat of a flair for the dramatic with probably his best known heroics being his walk off hit against Orix at the end of the 2014 season which clinched the Pacfic League pennant for the Hawks. He helped the Hawks to win seven Nippon Series championships between 2011 and 2020.
His production had dropped off by the last few years of the Hawks' dominance, with his average dropping into the .220-.230 range and his home runs dropping to the mid-teens in both 2020 and 2021. He lost his starting role in 2022, only hitting .204 in 43 games, and was released by the Hawks at the end of the season. He signed with the Yomiuri Giants last year but ultimately only played in 12 games at the top level and hit a paltry .063. He announced his retirement at the end of September.
He's a seven time All Star (2011-13, 2015-18) although technically he's an eight time one as he was selected by the fans in 2014 but declined to participate. He won eight Golden Glove awards (2011, 2013-19) - the most by any third baseman in NPB history - and one Best 9 award (2018). He played in 55 Climax Series games, the most of any player, and is tied with Hayato Sakamoto for most runs in Climax Series history with 25. (He's still number one in both categories even if you include the Pacific League playoffs from 1973-82 and 2004-06.) He played for the Japanese National Team in four major tournaments - the 2013 and 2017 World Baseball Classics and the 2015 and 2019 Premier 12s - and was a mainstay of Samurai Japan in various friendlies during the 10's.
He was an international free agent after the 2015 season and attempted to get an MLB contract. He was close to a deal with the Padres but ultimately backed out because they wanted him to play other positions besides third base.
Matsuda had a couple of well known idiosyncrasies. He'd frequently hop around on his right foot after swinging and missing (or swinging and fouling the ball off). This was so noticeable to the members of the 2014 MLB All Star team in Japan that Jose Veras was imitating it:
His other trademark was his post-home run move. After walking in front of the dugout, high-fiving his teammates, he'd assume a dramatic pose with his hand thrust in the air and shout "Atsuo!" which roughly translates to "hot man!" (this had apparently been the Hawks slogan in 2015 and 2016). As we'll see shortly, the pose was used on a number of his baseball cards.
His first card was #13 in the 2006 BBM Rookie Edition set and he had additional rookie cards that year in BBM's 1st Version (#71), 2nd Version (#545), Hawks (#H044) and Touch The Game (#019) sets as well as Calbee's Series Two (#106) and a couple of Konami sets. He was in every BBM 1st Version set between 2006 and 2023, every 2nd Version set over the same time period except 2007, 2009 and 2023, and every Calbee set except 2007. Here's a bunch of his cards:
1 comment:
Ah, another old Hawk favorite of mine.
Another thing he is known for is his tendency to blink a lot. His nickname in Fukuoka was “Pachi Pachi Kun” (roughly “Blinky Blinky Kid” in English).
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