De Glaskoning Twins signs Japanese player for 2018 season

Just like the previous two seasons, Dutch hoofdklasse club De Glaskoning Twins has signed a Japanese pitcher to reinforce its ranks. The new player is Shogo Nakashima, who played in the organization of the Yakult Swallows.

It seems to become a tradition to sign a Japanese player. After Keiji Uezono and Daisuke Yamashita, Shogo Nakashima is the third Japanese pitcher in a row for the club from Oosterhout.

Shogo played two seasons in Japanese professional baseball in the organization of the Yakult Swallows. For the biggest part, he played for the Ni-Gun (Japanese minor leagues) team of the Swallows in the Eastern League, where he posted a 4.41 ERA with a 5-6 record. In 69.1 innings, he gave up 82 hits, 34 earned runs, struck out 41 and issued 19 walks.

In two years with the Swallows, he had several cups of coffee in the NPB. In five games he posted an ERA of 10.57.

Even though he may not have been good enough for the big guys in Japan, he may be a good addition for De Glaskoning Twins as the level Ni-Gun baseball is still a lot higher than the level in the Dutch hoofdklasse.

When you look at his rookie card on top of this blog post, the triple-digit uniform number may catch your eye. This is a common practice in Japanese minor league baseball where many players wear triple-digit uniform numbers.

This winter Shogo has played for an exhibition team, named the Asian Islanders. Together with several former Japanese players, the team contains players from Belgium, Finland, Korea, Venezuela and the United States. This team will play 17 exhibition games against local Taiwanese university teams and industrial league teams.

The expectation is that Shogo will be in the Netherlands right before the start of the hoofdklasse season on the 26th of April. It all depends how quick a working permit can be arranged.