Naoto Watanabe

Naoto Watanabe (渡辺 直人)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 8", Weight 161 lb.

• School Josai University
• High School Ushiku High School

• Born October 15, 1980 in Ushiku, Ibaraki Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Naoto Watanabe has played in Nippon Pro Baseball and for the Japanese national team.

Watanabe represented Japan in the 2006 Intercontinental Cup. The Rakuten Golden Eagles drafted him in the fifth round of the 2006 NPB draft. He was named the starting shortstop of the Golden Eagles as a rookie, and hit .268/.338/.329 with 25 steals. He batted .251/.354/.283 with 34 steals in 2008, led the league in hit-by-pitches and ranked 2nd in steals(16 behind Yasuyuki Kataoka). He extended his stable performance, had a .276/.360/.343 batting line with 26 steals in 2009, and hit .265/.353/.310 in 2010. When their Ace Hisashi Iwakuma decided to used posting system to join the MLB, Rakuten expected that the Oakland Athletics will pay back large amount of cash, so they signed two free agents Akinori Iwamura and Kazuo Matsui. However, Iwakuma was unable to have an agreement with Oakland, so Rakuten traded Watanabe to the Yokohama BayStars for cash.

Watanabe played well in the first year with the BayStars. He batted .266/.342/.323 with 7 steals, and attend the All-Star Game for the only time in his career. He was 1-for-2 in Game 2, then collected 2 singles in 4 at-bats in Game 3 and won the Fighting Spirit Award. He suffered a right shoulder injury in the next year, missed 2 months and prospect Takayuki Kajitani took his spot. He was 2-for-15 in 2013 before the BayStars demoted him, and he was traded to the Seibu Lions for Shuichiro Osada on July 7.

Watanabe only hit .201/.273/.237 as the Lions' backup infielder in the rest of the 2013 season. He bounced back and hit .260/.340/.314 with a career-high 35 sacrifice bunts in 2014. The Ibaraki native extended his stable performance, recorded a .272/.348/.329 in 2015, then improved to .309/.352/.348 in 2016. However, when rookie infielder Sosuke Genda shined in 2017, Watanabe was benched and he only got 68 at-bats in that year. The Lions released 37-year-old Watanabe in the end of the 2017 season, the Golden Eagles then picked him back. Watanabe only played 89 games combined in the next three seasons, then announced his retirement after the 2020 season, and became a coach. He was hitting coach for Rakuten from 2020 to 2022, then became their defense coach since 2023 season.

Overall, Watanabe had hit .259/.342/.314 with 115 steals in 14 seasons in NPB.

Sources

• NPB site
• Wiki Japan