Tokitaka Minamibuchi

Tokitaka Minamibuchi (南渕 時高)

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 5' 7", Weight 154 lb.

• School Aoyama Gakuin University
• High School Tenri High School

• Born October 29, 1965 in Higashiosaka, Osaka Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Tokitaka Minamibuchi has played in Nippon Pro Baseball and the Japanese national team.

Minamibuchi was on the Japanese national team in the 1989 Asian Championship and 1989 Intercontinental Cup. The Lotte Orions drafted him in the fourth round of the 1989 NPB draft. He only played 34 games in his rookie year. In 1991, he won the competition with Kenichi Sato for the starting shortstop hib, and recorded a .248/.348/.393 batting line. He extended his solid performance, hitting .254/.334/.351 in 1992, then improved to .273/.394/.359 in 1993. He set the NPB record for 14 consecutive at-bats reaching base (broken by Jun Hirose in 2013). His batting was still stable in the next three seasons, as he hit .276/.352/.398, .271/.343/.350 and .264/.335/.353 respectively. He slumped to .205/.284/.247 in 1997, and prospect Makoto Kosaka took his spot. He was traded with Takatoshi Kishikawa to the Chunichi Dragons for Kazutoshi Higuchi and Hiromu Kojima after the 1997 season. The Osaka native hit .264/.340/.333 in 1998, but he only played 16 games in 1999. The Dragons traded him to the Orix Braves in 2000, and he announced his retirement after going 2-for-7 in the 2000 season.

Overall, Minamibuchi had hit .262/.346/.359 with 22 homers in 11 seasons in NPB.

Sources

• NPB site
• Wiki Japan