Shunsuke

Another retirement post for a mononymous player - this time it's Hanshin Tigers outfielder Shunsuke.  Born Shunsuke Fujikawa, he was a star at Kinki University, winning five Best 9 awards and an MVP award.  He had an agreement in place to play for Toho Gas in the corporate leagues after graduation if he was not taken in one of the first three rounds of the 2009 draft and all 12 NPB teams were supposedly made aware of this.  However, the Hanshin Tigers took him in the fifth round and after much consternation, he decided to sign with Hanshin instead of playing for Toho Gas.

He changed his registered name to "Shunsuke" after the 2010 season to avoid confusion with Tigers reliever Kyuji Fujikawa and kept the name even when Fujikawa left for MLB for a couple seasons and retired after the 2020 season.

I think bigger things were expected of him but he seems to have quickly fallen into a backup outfielder and pinch hitter role.  He never seemed to hit very well as his career batting average was only .249.  His best season was probably 2013 when he hit .292 in 119 games (although only 216 at bats).  His playing time with the top team tailed off considerably after Koji Chikamoto joined Hanshin in 2019 - he only appeared in 15 total ichi-gun games in 2019 and 2020 and spent all of 2021 with the farm team.  He'll be a coach for the Red Star Baseball Club, a youth club run by former Tigers outfielder Norihiro Akahoshi, and also work in the Tigers front office.

His BBM rookie cards are #030 in the 2010 Rookie Edition set and #143 in the 2010 1st Version set.  His first Calbee card was #217 in the 2010 Series Three set.  Here's some of his cards:

2010 BBM Rookie Edition #030

2010 BBM 1st Version #143

2011 BBM 2nd Version #597

2014 BBM 1st Version #210

2015 Tigers Original Player Card #23

2018 Epoch NPB #282

2021 BBM Tigers #T69