Japanese Baseball Cards: Hiroyuki Fukuyama

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Hiroyuki Fukuyama

Another player who hung up his spikes after the 2022 season was pitcher Hiroyuki Fukuyama. Fukuyama had played second base in high school but lied on his entrance examination to Osaka University of Commerce and said he had been a pitcher. He pitched pretty well for the team, going 17-11 with a 1.67 ERA and 176 strikeouts in 46 games. He was taken in the sixth round of the 2010 draft by the Yokohama Baystars.

Things didn't go too well for him in Yokohama. He got into 19 games with the top team in his rookie season of 2011 and went 0-1 with a 5.75 ERA. He only got into two games at that level in 2012 and got lit up in both of them, posting an ERA of 18.00. The Baystars suggested that he switch back to being a position player to take advantage of his speed but Fukuyama refused. The team then released him at the end of the 2012 season.

The Eagles picked him that winter and he found got into 22 games in middle relief for Rakuten in the championship year of 2013. He made the team's Nippon Series roster but didn't see any action. He then ran off four straight strong seasons of middle relief work, getting into at least 65 games each season including a league leading 69 in 2016. He had 87 holds and 9 saves during that stretch and made the All Star team for the only time in his career in 2014. He bookended those four seasons with hist two best ones - going 4-2 with a 1.87 ERA in 2014 and 6-0 with a 1.06 ERA in 2017.

His performance fell off a cliff in 2018 though, as his ERA ballooned to 6.75 in 21 games. Things didn't get any better the following year as he posted a 5.19 ERA in just seven games before being shut down for arthroscopic surgery on his right elbow and shoulder. With the expected recovery time being somewhat lengthy, the Eagles released him and resigned him to a development player (ikusei) contract.

He came back from surgery and pitched well on the farm team in 2020, posting a 0.79 ERA in 12 games before the Eagles moved him back onto the 70 man roster to end the season. He continued pitching well in 2021, getting into 24 games with a 2.38 ERA despite going 0-2. He spent most of last season on the farm though, only getting into three games with the ichi-gun team. The Eagles released him at the end of the season and he announced his retirement shortly afterwards. He's a scorer for the team this year.

Fukuyama's rookie cards are from 2011 BBM sets - Rookie Edition (#094), 1st Version (#322) and the Baystars team set (#YB23). His first Calbee card was #175 from 2014 Series Three. TCDB's listing of his cards can be found here. Here are some of his cards - note that his uniform number on his 2020 Eagles team set card is "164" - the three digit number indicates that he's an ikusei player: