Shoichi Inoh

Former Baystars and Giants pitcher Shoichi Inoh is another player who retired at the end of last year.  Inoh attended Jobu University and then joined the NTT East Japan corporate league team after graduation.  He spent four years with NTT before trying to join NPB and so he was 26 when he was drafted by the DeNA in the third round of the 2012 draft.  

He spent his first year bouncing between the top team and the farm team but he made a name for himself with a complete game victory against the Giants on September 28th.  He was the first rookie pitcher for the team to have a complete game victory against Yomiuri in 36 years.  

Inoh spent most of his career with DeNA in the starting rotation for the ichi-gun team although he made a couple appearances on their minor league team each year as well.  He only posted winning records in a couple seasons - 2014 (11-9) and 2018 (6-3).  He made the All Star team in 2014, 2016 and 2017 and pitched in the 2017 Nippon Series.  He also threw a no-hitter with the farm team in 2018.

He left the Baystars as s free agent following the 2020 season and signed with Yomiuri.  He had a disastrous first outing with the Giants, giving up five hits and four earned runs in an inning plus against the Dragons in the fifth game of the season and got banished to the farm the next day.  That one bad outing seems to have pretty much caused Yomiuri to bury him - he only made four more appearances the rest of the season with the top team and ended the year with an 0-1 record and a 14.40 ERA.  He didn't get a lot more opportunity last year, making only seven appearances (but only pitching five innings) although he did go 1-0 with a 1.80 ERA.

Having only gotten 12 appearances out of him after a two year, 200 million yen contract, the Giants were not interested in renewing his contract at the end of 2022.  Inoh attended the 12-team tryout in Miyagi in November but didn't draw any interest.  He announced his retirement at the end of December and will be a lecturer at the Giants Academy this year.

Inoh's first BBM cards were in the 2013 BBM Rookie Edition (#37), 1st Version (#159), 2nd Version (#538) and Baystars (#DB07) sets.  He also had rookie cards in the 2013 Bandai Owners League 03 set (#061), and the Front Runner Baystars Rookies & Young Stars (#22) and Season Summary (#20) sets.  He had a Star card in the 2014 Calbee Series Three set (#S-69) but his first "regular" base set Calbee card wasn't until 2015 Series One (#074).  Here's TCDB.com's list of his cards and here's a handful of them:

2013 BBM Rookie Edition #37

2013 BBM 1st Version #159

2014 Front Runner Baystars Rookies & Young Stars #15

2015 Calbee #074

2016 Epoch Baystars Season Achievements #4

2017 Baystars BSpirit #15

2018 BBM 1st Version #219

2020 BBM Baystars #DB06

2022 BBM Giants #G09