Seiya Inoue

Seiya Inoue (井上 晴哉)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10", Weight 251 lb.

• School Chuo University
• High School Sotoku High School

• Born July 3, 1989 in Hiroshima, Hiroshima Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Outfielder Seiya Inoue has played for the Japanese national team and in Nippon Pro Baseball.

Inoue won the Best Nine in the Tohto University Base Ball League in 2010 and 2011, and he represented Japan in the 2010 World University Championship. After college, he played for Nippon Life Insurance in the industrial leagues, and made it onto the Japanese roster for the 2013 East Asian Games. He hit .329 in 7 games, collected three hits in the final against South Korea, and won the Gold Medal in that event.

The Chiba Lotte Marines drafted Inoue in the fifth round of the 2013 NPB draft. Inoue shined in the NPB Farm League in his rookie year. He blasted two homers in the NPB Farm League All-Star Game, and won the MVP. He also completed the 8th cycle of the Eastern League on May 20, 2015, and hit .323/.422/.503 with 7 homers. However, he couldn't stay with the big club, and only played 111 games combined from 2014 to 2017.

Inoue broke out in 2018. He hit .292/.374/.506 with 24 homers, and led the team in batting average, homers and RBI. He blasted 7 dingers in July, and won the first Player of the Month Award in his career. The Hiroshima native extended his stable performance, when he recorded a .252/.362/.462 batting line with 24 homers again in 2019. Inoue hit .245/.356/.394 with 15 homers in 2020, and crushed three homers in a game on July 28. Inoue started in all 5 games of the 2020 Climax Series, but made an important error which caused the Softbank Hawks to win Game 1. He suffered a right hand injury, and missed nearly all of the 2021 season and half of the 2022 season.