Katsuyuki Dobashi

Katsuyuki Dobashi (土橋 勝征)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10", Weight 182 lbs.

• High School Inba High School

• Born December 5, 1968 in Funabashi, Chiba Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Katsuyuki Dobashi played in Nippon Pro Baseball for 19 years.

Dobashi was drafted by the Yakult Swallows in the second round of the 1986 NPB draft, but he spent most of his first five seasons in the NPB Farm Leagues, and only played 62 games with the big club. He was their 4th outfielder in 1993, and he hit .263/.329/.409 in 98 games. He also collected his first sayonara homer, off Tsutomu Tamura of the Hanshin Tigers, on August 22. Dobashi split time between second base and outfield in 1994, and he blasted a career-high 12 homers with a .254/.332/.414 batting line.

The Chiba native improved and had his career year in 1995. He hit .281/.351/.414 with 9 homers, and tied Bobby Rose for the Central League lead in doubles (32). Dobashi was also selected for the 1995 NPB All-Star Games, and he was 1-for-3 with an infield single against Masafumi Hirai in Game 1. The Yakult won the CL pennant this season, and his manager Katsuya Nomura said that he thought Dobashi was the MVP of the Swallows. In the 1995 Nippon Series, he was only 3-for-24 and won his first Nippon Series title as the Swallows beat the Seibu Lions in 5 games. He gained 97 votes in the CL MVP voting, ranking 4th behind his teammates Tom O'Malley, Atsuya Furuta and Terry Bross.

Dobashi secured the starting second baseman spot with his solid performance in 1996, and he hit .278/.341/.392 with 6 homers. He improved to .301/.346/.431 in 1997 (missing the CL top-10 in average by .003), then recorded a .259/.331/.363 batting line with 9 homers in 1998. Dobashi suffered from injuries in 1999 so he only played 39 games, and his batting line fell to .225/.278/.279 in 2000; he led the CL in sacrifice bunts with 29 this season. The veteran's .249 batting line in 2001 was the lowest among batting title qualifiers, and he lost his starting spot in 2002. Dobashi only played 62 games in 2002, but bounced back as he hit .302/.357/.429 in 89 games in 2003.

The 35-year-old had the highest batting average of his career in 2004, and his batting line was .315/.358/.428. Had he qualified, he would have been 6th in the CL in average. He only hit .259/.321/.340 in 2005, then announced his retirement after the 2006 season. Dobashi then became the batting coach for the minor league team of the Swallows from 2007 to 2008 and the fielding coach from 2010 to 2015. He was the fielding coach for their big club in 2009 and from 2018 to 2019.

Overall, Dobashi had hit .266/.328/.373 with 1,121 hits and 79 homers in 19 seasons in NPB.

Sources

• NPB site
• Wiki Japan
• 1995 NPB All Star Game