Tomehiro Kaneda

Tomehiro Kaneda (金田 留広)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 176 lbs.
• School Aichi Gakuin University
• High School Aichi High School

• Born November 7, 1946 in Nagoya, Aichi Japan
• Died October 2, 2018 in Tokyo Prefecture Japan

BR Register page

Biographical Information

Tomehiro Kaneda pitched in Nippon Pro Baseball for 13 years. His brother is NPB legendary pitcher Masaichi Kaneda and his nephew Akihito Kaneishi was an All-Star.

Kaneda was drafted by the Toei Flyers in the fourth round of the 1968 NPB draft. He joined the rotation as a rookie in the middle of the season, and ended up 18-13 with 6 saves a 3.63 ERA in a league-leading 59 appearances in 1969. He also attended the 1969 NPB All-Star Game, allowed a run in Game 1, had a shutout inning in Game 2 and Sadaharu Oh blasted a 2-run shot off him in Game 3. However, he still lost the Pacific League Rookie of the Year to Michiyo Arito.

Because of the Black Mist Scandal, the Flyers lost two important pitchers, Mitsugu Tanaka and Toshiaki Moriyasu, in 1970. Thus, Kaneda needed to pitched more games and he recorded a league-leading 316 1/3 innings with a 2.71 ERA and 24 wins in that season. He was 2nd in wins (1 behind Fumio Narita), 5th in ERA (.65 behind Koichiro Sasaki) and 2nd in strikeouts (1 behind Keishi Suzuki). In 1970 NPB All-Star Game 1, he allowed one run with 3 strikeouts in 3 innings.

Kaneda was selected for the 1971 NPB All-Star Games, started in Game 2, pitched 3 shutout innings with 5 strikeouts and collected the win. He ended up 15-14 with a 2.99 ERA, ranked 6th in wins (9 behind Masaaki Kitaru) and 3rd in strikeouts (82 behind Suzuki). He also broke the NPB record for allowing 42 homers in a season (broken by Kojiro Ikegaya in 1978, but still the Pacific League record). He notched a league-leading 20 wins with a 3.24 ERA in 1972, and also led the league in complete games. He blasted a grand slam on September 22 off Tsuneo Nozaki, and became the last PL pitcher to had a grand slam until 2023. However, Kaneda suffered a right index finger fracture, and only had a 7-16 with a 3.77 ERA in 1973. The Flyers then traded him to the Lotte Orions for Osamu Nomura after the 1973 season.

The Nagoya native recovered in 1974, and had a career year with the Orions. He collected a league-leading 16 wins with a 2.90 ERA (4th in PL, .99 behind Michiro Sato), and won both his first Best Nine and PL MVP awards. He started in the Game 1 of the 1974 Nippon Series, allowed 3 runs in 5 innings and had a no-decision. Kaneda bounced back in Game 4, going 6 innings with 3 runs allowed and collected the win over Yukiharu Shibuya. The Orions beat the Chunichi Dragons in 6 games, and Kaneda won his only Nippon Series title.

Kaneda slumped to 6-7 with a 3.85 ERA in 1975, and his ERA rose to 4.04 and he got 8 losses in 1976. He was used as a swingman in 1977, and had a 2.64 ERA in 32 appearances (19 starts) in 1978. His performance declined as his ERA rose to 3.27 in 1979, and the Orions traded him with Hidetake Watanabe to the Hiroshima Carp for Takao Kenmotsu, Hideyuki Hirata and Takuya Mochizuki after the 1979 season. Kaneda was a low-leverage reliever with the Carp, and he had a 2.93 ERA in 16 appearances in the first year with the Carp. He only played 25 more games in the next three years, and announced his retirement after spending the whole 1982 season in the NPB Farm Leagues. He was the pitching coach of the minor league team of the Orions from 1987 to 1988 after retiring.

Overall, Kaneda was 128-109 with a 3.25 ERA, struck out 1,317 and pitched 2,055 1/3 innings in 13 seasons in NPB.

Related Sites

• NPB site
• Wiki Japan