Kenji Morozumi

Kenji Morozumi (諸積 兼司)

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 162 lb.
• School Hosei University
• High School Ishikawa High School
• Born May 29, 1969 in Aizu Wakamatsu, Fukushima Japan

BR Register page

Biographical Information

Outfielder Kenji Morozumi played for the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball from 1994 to 2006.

He won a batting title in college then played for Hitachi Seisakusho in the industrial leagues. He was taken by Chiba Lotte in the 5th round of the 1993 NPB draft. His first NPB manager, Bobby Valentine, said he threw like a girl. He got his first NPB hit in his first pro at-bat, against Hiroshi Takamura of the Kintetsu Buffaloes. He was 0 for 5 the rest of the season, though. In 1995, he became the Marines' starting center fielder. His first NPB homer came off Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi. He hit .290/.356/.340 with 24 steals in 36 tries. He finished 5th in the Pacific League in average (between Yukio Tanaka and Darrin Jackson), 3rd in steals (behind Ichiro Suzuki and Akihiro Muramatsu), 2nd in caught stealing (5 behind Muramatsu), tied for 10th in triples (3) and tied for 10th in sacrifice hits (14). it would be his highwater mark for OPS. He highly praised manager Bobby Valentine, saying "I loved playing for Bobby. He did not require that we practice until we collapsed."

In 1996, he fell to .253/.338/.307 and stole 15 bases but was caught 8 times. He tied Makoto Kaneko and Susumu Otomo for 7th in steals and tied Tuffy Rhodes for 5th in times caught. The next year, he made no errors in 106 games in the outfield. He batted .261/.357/.321 and legged out six triples, 5th in the PL. In 1998, he posted a .279/.343/.353 batting line and made only one error. His five triples were tied for third in the PL with Otomo.

He remained steady in 1999, when he hit .280/.325/.361 with 2 home runs, 33 RBI, 56 runs scored and 121 hits in 124 games. He set career highs for runs and RBI and went 120 games without an error. His five triples tied Tsutomu Ishimoto and Tadaharu Sakai for second in the PL, five behind Makoto Kosaka. During 2000, he hit .271/.346/.342 and made an uncharacteristic eight errors. He tied Phil Clark, Sherman Obando and Tatsuya Ozeki for 4th in the PL with seven times hit by pitch. He fell to .177/.252/.206 in 2001, losing his spot to Koichi Hori. He rebounded to .252/.309/.335 in 2002 and stole 18 bases in 21 tries. The veteran was 4th in the circuit in steals, behind Yoshitomo Tani, Kazuo Matsui and Tadahito Iguchi. He set the Marines' record for consecutive hit streak with 26 games, breaking Art López's decades-old mark.

Morozumi slumped back to .214/.290/.262 in 2003, losing his starting role. He hit .267/.357/.326 in 102 plate appearances over 92 games in 2004. He reached 1,000 career games. He hit .250/.294/.406 in 35 plate appearances over 87 games in 2005, mainly a defensive sub; Matt Franco and Seung-yeop Lee were the starters in left. He had the same role in the 2005 Japan Series, playing three games as a LF/CF but not batting (he did score a run). He was 2 for 4 with a triple, two runs and two RBI in 2006, still appearing in 20 games.

Overall, Morozumi batted .263/.332/.329 with 7 home runs, 153 RBI and 103 stolen bases in 1,110 games over 13 seasons.

He coached for Chiba Lotte, alternating between the minors and for the top team, from 2007-2010 and 2018- .

He was popular with fans for his sliding on a tarpaulin full of rain during rain delays, a la Rick Dempsey, as well as some other comic antics.