Japanese Baseball Cards: Itsuki Shoda

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Itsuki Shoda

Getting back to the retirement posts...

Itsuki Shoda, who had a 24 year career in professional baseball between Japan and Taiwan, announced his retirement last November. Shoda had been the ace pitcher for Kiryu Daiichi High School and helped the team win their first ever Summer Koshien title (and first ever for a school in Gunma prefecture) in 1999 by throwing three shutouts and pitching a complete game in the finals while only giving up one run. He was taken in the first round of the 1999 draft by the Nippon-Ham Fighters.

He pitched mostly on the farm team for his first two professional seasons, only getting in five games with the top team in 2000 and 2001 but he was moved in the starting rotation in 2003. He had probably his best season in NPB that year, going 9-11 with a 3.45 ERA in 23 starts for the fifth place Fighters, earning him the Pacific League's Rookie Of The Year award.

Shoda developed left shoulder pain in spring training in 2003 but the Fighters ran him out for 26 starts that year. He went 5-15 and his ERA ballooned to 5.78 although he had a scoreless streak of 27 innings at one point. He moved with the team to Sapporo in 2004 and went a decent 8-5 although his ERA was 5.00.

He was banished to ni-gun midway through the 2005 season after going 2-6 with an ERA of 6.27 in 12 starts. His Wikipedia page blames control issues although you have to wonder if he was hurt, especially given that he'd probably been overworked as a high schooler. Regardless of the reason, he never again appeared at the ichi-gun level in the last season and half he spent with the Fighters.

In March of 2007, Nippon-Ham dealt him to Hanshin for Takehito Kanazawa. He toiled on the Tigers' farm team for two seasons but never got called up to the top team. The team released him after the 2008 season and he attended the 12 team tryout but didn't get any offers from NPB teams.

He traveled to Taiwan in early 2009 and tried out for and made the Sinon Bulls team. He ended up spending two seasons in Taichung, going 14-6 with a 4.44 ERA in 2009 and 11-5 with a 2.81 ERA in 2010. (He also got into two games with Gigantes del Cibao of the Dominican Winter League during their 2009-10 season.) Despite this success, the Bulls released him after 2010. It wasn't anything to do with his performance - Sinon was having financial issues and released ALL their foreign players before 2011.

Shoda made a somewhat curious decision at this point. Rather than attempt to parley two years of success in Taiwan into a new NPB contract, he decided to come to the US and try out for an MLB team. He signed a minor league deal with the Boston Red Sox and attended spring training in 2011 as a non-roster invitee. The Red Sox released him just before the season started and he returned to Japan.

He signed on with the Niigata Albirex of the independent Baseball Challenge League, reuniting with future Swallows manager Shingo Takatsu who he'd been teammates with the previous year with Sinon. He pitched decently for Niigata, going 3-5 in 23 games with a 3.00 ERA. He pitched mostly in relief and recored one save.

He signed a contract with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in late 2011, becoming just the second player (after Akichika Yamada) to return to NPB after a stint in the indy leagues. He spent the next two seasons working out of the bullpen for Yakult, appearing in 39 games and posting a sub-3.00 ERA but the Swallows released him following the 2013 season. He again attended the 12 team tryout but again drew no interest from any NPB teams.

He returned to Taiwan for 2014, signing on with the Lamigo Monkeys. It didn't go as well as his previous CPBL tour of duty as he went 2-2 with a 4.81 ERA in eight starts before getting released in mid-May.

He came back to Japan and joined the Ehime Mandarin Pirates of the Shikoku Island League just in time for the end of the first half of the season. He dominated the league in the second half, going 7-2 with a league leading 1.02 ERA in 14 starts and won the second half MVP award. He won the full season MVP award the following year, going 7-3 with an 0.72 ERA (which again led the league). He once again attended the 12 team tryout at the end of 2015 and once again came away without any teams being interested.

He spent the next eight years continuing to play for Ehime in the SIL. His 1.38 ERA in 2017 netted him a third league ERA title. He was a player-coach in his last two seasons. He was the only player to appear on all three of the Shikoku Island All Star teams that played in the Can-Am League in 2015, 2016 and 2019. He was the next-to-last active player from the 1999 draft, With his retirement, the only active player drafted in the 20th Century is now Munenori Kawasaki of the Tochigi Golden Braves of the Baseball Challenge League.

Shoda's baseball cards are mostly from his NPB days along with a handful of CPBL cards. His first card was #P125 in the 2000 BBM Preview set (it was the first time BBM did draft pick cards although they were only for the first round picks). He also had a card in the regular BBM set from 2000 (#366) as well as appearances in Epoch's Pro-Baseball sticker set (#082), the Future Bee Power League Dream Stadium set (#099), Konami's Field Of Nine Series 3 set (#FON1CA88) and the Upper Deck Ovation "Rising Stars" subset (#18). He didn't have another BBM flagship card until 2003 although he was in the 2002 Touch The Game set (as well as Konami's Prime Nine set that year). He had his first Calbee card in the 2003 Series One set (#077) and had a couple additional cards in other Calbee Series that year but those ended up being the only Calbee cards he ever had. His appearances in BBM's flagship sets ended after 2007 and his only cards in 2008 and 2012-13 were in the Tigers and Swallows team sets. He appeared in CPBL cards in 2009-10 and again in 2014. As far as I can tell, he never had any cards with either Niigata or Ehime. Here's a handful of his cards: