Yamato Maeda

Yamato Maeda (前田 大和)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10", Weight 140 lb.
• High School Shonan High School

• Born November 5, 1987 in Kanoya, Kagoshima Japan

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Biographical Information

Yamato Maeda is an infielder and outfielder in Nippon Pro Baseball who played with the Hanshin Tigers from 2008 to 2017 and with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars starting in 2018. His first season was with Hanshin's ni-gun team in the minor league Western League, but starting in 2009, he has appeared in the top-level Central League every season, although in most years he has split his time between that and the minor leagues.

Maeda was originally an infielder, playing mainly shortstop and second base, but in 2012, he became Hanshin's regular centerfielder even though he was listed on the official roster as an infielder. This was also the first season in which he appeared exclusively at the top level, hitting .257 in 128 games, with no homers and 26 RBIs. Before that, he had been a back-up infielder for the Tigers, never appearing in more than 66 games for the Tigers in any season. He kept the starting centerfield job for three more seasons, hitting .273 in 104 games in 2013, .264 in 121 games in 2014, when he hit his first top-level homer (he had hit a handful in the minors before that), and .225 in 123 games in 2015 when his lack of power hit its nadir, with just 5 extra-base hits in 249 at-bats. After that, he continued to appear in a lot of games, but his plate appearances went down significantly. In 2016, back to playing second base, he hit .231 in 111 games and hit only his second top-level homer. He bounced back to hit .280 in 100 games in his final season for Hanshin in 2017, but again with only 7 extra-base hits.

In spite of these rather uninspiring offensive numbers, he was back to being a regular in his first season for Yokohama in 2018, when he batted .244 in 113 games as the team's shortstop, taking over for Toshihiko Kuramoto on a team that had just appeared in the 2017 Japan Series. He also held down the position in 2018 and 2019, hitting .244 and .237 respectively. In 2020, his playing time went down significantly, as he had 199 at-bats in 85 games split between second base and shortstop, while, ironically he posted his highest batting average in years at .281 with a whopping 4 long balls. That earned him another 100+-game season in 2021 when he hit .252 as the Bay Stars' most frequent shortstop. In 2022, he managed to keep his job for another 91 games of hitting .247 with almost no power: in his 14 seasons at the top level to that point, his slugging percentage was an anemic .313 in almost 1,400 games. He twice had to miss stretches after being infected with the Coronavirus during that season.

During his time with Hanshin, the Tigers took part in the 2014 Japan Series, which they lost, four games to one, to the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. He was noted for his outstanding defensive play in center field during the series, including making two remarkable catches in Game 5 on October 30 that preserved a scoreless tie until Softbank scored the game's only run in the 8th. He had started a five-run rally in Game 1, leading off the bottom of the 5th with a single off Jason Standridge before Mauro Gomez and Matt Murton both had two-run hits in a 6-2 win, Hanshin's only one of the series. He was the team's number 8 hitter in the series, reflecting the fact that it was his glove, and not his bat, that justified his place in the line-up. In fact, he won a Gold Glove for his defensive prowess in centerfield that season, the only one of his career.