Nearing 2000

So after doing my post yesterday about the starting pitchers who were closing in on 200 wins and Meikyukai membership, I thought I'd do a quick post on the batters who are approaching 2000 hits, the threshold required for hitters to join the club.  (I had considered doing relief pitchers approaching 250 saves, the other milestone for entry into the club but there's no one still active within 75 saves - the top two on NPB's list of "active" saves leaders are Kyuji Fujikawa and Dennis Sarfate who have both retired.) 

I'm basing this off NPB's list of active hit leaders.  Now there are five active hitters who are already Meikyukai members (remember that hits in MLB count as long as the player's first hit was in NPB) - Norichika Aoki (2478 hits, 1704 in NPB and 774 in MLB), Kosuke Fukudome (2407 hits, 1909 in NPB and 498 in MLB), Seiichi Uchikawa (2171 hits), Takashi Toritani (2090 hits) and Hayato Sakamoto (2003 hits).  There are seven other hitters that currently have more than 1500 hits.  Here's the list:

7. Tomotaka Sakaguchi, 1506 hits

2012 BBM Pedigree #29

6. Takeya Nakamura, 1522 hits

2012 Lions Winning Game Card #71

5. Yohei Ohshima, 1588 hits

2016 Kabaya Central League Gum #30

4. Yoshio Itoi, 1696 hits

2017 Epoch Tigers #31 (2 star variant)

3. Nobuhiro Matsuda, 1728 hits

2014 Hawks "Special Baseball Card" #5

2. Hiroyuki Nakajima, 1850 hits

2007 Lions "Special Card" #3

1. Takumi Kuriyama, 1926 hits

2013 Lions Fan Club #1

I guess I'm a little less surprised by this group than by the pitchers, although I hadn't realized how many hits Nakajima actually had.  He'd probably be over 2000 by now had he not spent two years in Oakland's organization in 2013-14.  Similarly you wonder if Itoi would have reached 2000 hits by now had he not spent the first two seasons of his career as a pitcher.  It's also kind of funny that three of these players were drafted by the Lions in 2000 and 2001 (Nakajima in 2000 and Kuriyama and Nakamura in 2001).

Of this group of players, I only feel really good about Kuriyama, Matsuda and Ohshima ever reaching the 2000 hit milestone.  If he's healthy, Kuriyama will reach it this season.  I'd love to see Nakamura do it, but he had a very poor season last year and I worry he may be close to being done.  I'm not even sure if Itoi is still with Hanshin.  I'm not sure either Nakajima or Sakaguchi can get enough playing time when healthy to rack up the hits they need although obviously Nakajima's got a better shot at it than Sakaguchi just based on the number of hits needed.