Shota Dobayashi

Shota Dobayashi (堂林 翔太)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 178 lb.

• High School Chukyo University Senior High School

• Born August 17, 1991 in Toyota, Aichi Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Third baseman Shota Dobayashi has played in Nippon Professional Baseball.

Dobayashi was selected by the Hiroshima Carp in the second round of the 2009 NPB draft, and he stayed in the NPB Farm Leagues in his first two seasons. He debuted in 2012, and he hit .242/.321/.395 with 14 home runs, 45 RBI and 150 strikeouts in 144 games that year. He was selected into the 2012 NPB All-Star Game, and he became the youngest All-Star position player in Carp history; Dobayashi went 0-for-5 in the Games. He led the Central League with 150 strikeouts, and he set the Carp's record for most strikeouts in a season. Dobayashi was 6th in homers (14, tied with Hayato Sakamoto and Hisayoshi Chono) and 5th in doubles (25, tied with Takahiro Arai and Alex Ramirez. He won 9 votes in the Rookie of the Year voting, and he was 4th behind Yusuke Nomura's 200 votes, Shinji Tajima's 40 votes and Kyosuke Takagi's 12 votes.

The next year, he hit .217/.294/.305 with 6 home runs, 41 RBI and 10 steals in 105 games for the Carp. He was still selected into the 2013 NPB All-Star Game, but he was hitless again in four at-bats. In 2014, he hit .246/.332/.380 with 8 home runs and 28 RBI in 95 games for Hiroshima. He was voted into the 2014 NPB All-Star Game, and he was 2-for-3 in Game 1 then crushed a solo shot against Hiroyuki Fukuyama in Game 2. Dobayashi batted .261/.292/.290 and .250/.288/.357 in limited duty in 2015 and 2016, respectively. In 2017, he hit .217/.278/.304 with one home run and 11 RBI in 46 at-bats. Dobayashi struggled again in 2018 as his batting line was .216/.245/.314 (he did not appear for them in the 2018 Japan Series), and he went 7-for-34 in 2019.

The Aichi native came back in 2020, and he crushed 14 homers with 17 steals and a .279/.350/.436 batting line. It was the first time in 7 years that he was the regular third baseman for the team. He was 3rd in steals, behind Koji Chikamoto and Daiki Masuda. Dobayashi slumped to .190/.213/.234 in 2021, and he bounced back with a .243/.279/.400 batting line in 2022. He then crushed 12 homers with a .273/.323/.462 batting line in 2023, and he hit .230/.277/.295 in 2024. Dobayashi lost his spot after rookie Tai Sasaki joined the team, and his batting line fell to .186/.250/.314 in 2025.

Sources

• Wiki Japan