Atsushi Fujii

Atsushi Fujii (藤井 淳志)

• Bats Both, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 170 lb.

• School University of Tsukuba
• High School Toyohashi Higashi Senior High School

• Born May 20, 1981 in Toyohashi, Aichi Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Atsushi Fujii played in Nippon Pro Baseball for 15 years.

After college, Fujii played for NTT West in the industrial leagues. He played for Japan in the 2005 Asian Championship and 2005 Baseball World Cup; in the World Cup, he was 3 for 20 with a walk, triple, homer and 6 RBI as a part-time right fielder. Five of the RBI came in one win over Nicaragua. Fujii was picked by the Chunichi Dragons in the third round of the 2005 NPB draft. He hit .146/.167/.195 for them in 44 plate appearances and 40 games in 2006, scoring 10 runs on 6 hits. He was usually a defensive sub in center field or pinch-runner. He made one appearance in the 2006 Japan Series. In 2007, he hit .203/.224/.297 and stole 7 bases in 9 tries. He scored 14 runs on 13 hits and had 71 plate appearances in 76 games in a similar role to 2006; in the field, he made no errors. He was 0 for 6 in the 2007 Japan Series but drew 3 walks, drove in one run and scored another as Chunichi won its first Japan Series title in over 50 years. He scored the go-ahead run in game 4, pinch-hitting and drawing a walk from Mitsuo Yoshikawa before scoring on a wild pitch later in the inning.

In 2008, Fujii hit .171/.194/.371 in 40 games (39 plate appearances), scoring 10 runs on 6 hits. In his first 3 seasons, Fujii has had more runs than hits every year. Fujii hit .299/.337/.444 with 10 home runs and 49 RBI in 114 games in 2009. He was 8th in the Central League with 15 steals and tied for 8th with 26 doubles (tied with Shinya Miyamoto and Aaron Guiel). He recorded a .235/.269/.325 batting line in 2010, and he only played 20 games with a 12-for-50 record in 2011. Fujii went 0-for-12 in the 2011 Nippon Series, and the Dragons lost to the Softbank Hawks in 7 games.

Fujii spent most of his 2012 season in the minors, and his batting line fell to .196/.246/.232 in 54 games. He bounced back soon in 2013, and he played 108 games with a .303/.342/.420 batting line. He hit .274/.337/.414 in 2014, and his batting line was .295/.349/.415 in 2015. He slumped to .216/.265/.311 in 2016, then he played a career-high 128 games while batting .265/.311/.377 in 2017. Fujii hit .241/.290/.359 in 2018, and his batting line was .220/.279/.312 in 2019. He only played one more game for the big club before he announced his retirement in 2021.

Overall, Fujii hit .262/.308/.377 with 634 hits and 45 homers in 15 seasons in NPB.

Sources

• Defunct IBAF site
• Japanesebaseball.com by Michael Westbay
• Japanese Wikipedia entry