Upcoming Milestones

It's Opening Day for the NPB season tomorrow (at least from here in the states) and the first pitch will be in in about nine hours.  I thought I'd continue what I guess is going to be an another annual Opening Day tradition for me - a post about the player's who are approaching the milestones needed for admission into the Meikyukai or Golden Player's Club.  The requirements are for a player to have been born in the Showa Era or later (not that there's been an active player who wasn't born in the Showa Era or later since probably the 1960's) and to have accumulated 2000 hits, 200 wins or 250 saves.  Statistics from MLB count but only if the NPB stats came first - which is why Alfonso Soriano is eligble but Adam Jones doesn't.

There are five members of the Meikyukai active in NPB right now - Norichika Aoki, Hayato Sakamoto, Takumi Kuriyama, Yohei Ohshima and Yoshihisa Hirano.  Ohshima and Hirano both became members last year.

I'm going to start by listing the hitters who have less than 2000 hits but more than 1500:

1. Hiroyuki Nakajima, 1928 hits

2023 Topps NPB #69

2. Hideto Asamura, 1845 hits

2023 Calbee #076

3. Takeya Nakamura, 1771 hits

2023 Epoch One #756

4. Yoshiharu Maru, 1696 hits

2023 BBM 1st Version #262

5. Shogo Akiyama, 1636 hits (1565 NPB, 71 MLB)

2023 BBM 2nd Version #569

6. Ryosuke Kikuchi, 1591 hits

2023 BBM Carp #C49

7. Yuki Yanagita, 1542 hits

2023 Epoch NPB Luxury Collection #72

8. Sho Nakata, 1523 hits

2023 Topps 206 #93

The only guy on this list who realistically could reach 2000 hits this season is Asamura although I expect that Maru, Akiyama, Kikuchi and Yanagita will eventually make it.

Here's all the pitchers with more than 150 but less than 200 career victories.  Obviously this includes two MLB players:

1. Masahiro Tanaka, 197 wins (119 NPB, 78 MLB)

2023 BBM Infinity #13

2. Yu Darvish, 196 wins (93 NPB, 103 MLB)

2011 Calbee #096

3. Masanori Ishikawa, 185 wins

2023 BBM Swallows #S09

4. Tsuyoshi Wada, 163 wins (158 NPB, 5 MLB)

2023 BBM Hawks #H10

5. Kenta Maeda, 162 wins (97 NPB, 65 MLB)

2015 Bandai Owners League 01 #027

6. Hideaki Wakui, 159 wins

2023 BBM Dragons #D10

7. Takayuki Kishi, 158 wins

2023 Epoch NPB #111

I expect that both Tanaka and Darvish will get win #200 this year but the only one of the other five that I think will someday reach the milestone is Maeda.

Finally, here's all the pitchers with more than 200 hundred saves and less than 250:

1. Yuki Matsui, 236 saves

2023 BBM Icons - Samurai #10

2. Yasuaki Yamasaki, 227 saves

2023 BBM Baystars #DB10

3. Naoya Masuda, 218 saves

2023 BBM Marines #M29

It's not out of the question that all three of these guys reaches the milestone this year.

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure what's the record for "most guys joining the Meikyukai" in a single season but there's a pretty good chance that six guys will do it this year.