Yoshifumi Okada

Yoshifumi Okada of the Marines announced his retirement at the end of the 2018 season.  Okada was the sixth pick for the Marines in ikusei portion of the 2008 draft from the All Ashikaga Club, a club team in Ashikaga in Okada's home prefecture of Tochigi.  He wasn't on the development squad for long however as he was registered to the 70-man roster at the end of training camp in 2009.  He spent 2009 and the first half of 2010 with the farm team before making his debut with the ichi-gun team on June 1, 2010 and becoming Lotte's starting center fielder.  He hit .320 against the Dragons in a winning effort in the Nippon Series that year.  He played in all 144 games for the Marines in 2011 which I believe was the first time a former ikusei player played in every one of a team's games in a season.  He won Golden Glove awards in 2011 and 2012.  He was a regular for the Marines through 2016 but his playing time on the top time dropped dramatically - after playing in 121 games in 2016 he only got in 31 games in 2017 and 55 in 2018.  I'm not sure of the reason - he didn't appear to be injured and his offensive numbers in 2016 seem in line if not better than the rest of his career.  He's going to be an outfield/base coach for the Tochigi Golden Braves of the Baseball Challenge League next season.

His first BBM card was #029 from the 2009 Rookie Edition set.  Since he was ikusei he didn't have a card in the 2009 1st Version set but since he moved to the 70-man roster in late March of that year his flagship rookie card was included in the later 2nd Version set.  His first Calbee card didn't come until 2011 (#93).

2009 BBM Rookie Edition #029

2009 BBM 2nd Version #774

2010 BBM Nippon Series #S32

2012 BBM 1st Version #383

2014 Calbee #105

2016 BBM Marines #M63

2018 Epoch NPB #210