Takeya Nakamura

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Takeya Nakamura (中村 剛也)
(Okawari-kun)

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Biographical Information[edit]

Takeya Nakamura was one of the most dominant sluggers in NPB history with almost 500 home runs. He set the NPB grand slam record and the record for most pitchers homered off of. His nickname, "Okawari-kun", means "another helping" and refers to his appetite.

Nakamura hit 83 homers in high school, 3 shy of Hiroyuki Oshima's Japanese high school record, tying Ken Suzuki for second place all-time. He was a second-round draft pick of the Seibu Lions in the 2001 NPB draft; the scout was Teruo Suzuki. He spent 2002 in the minors. In 2003, he led the Eastern League in both homers (22) and strikeouts (97). Nakamura was 2 for 12 for the Seibu Lions in ichi-gun that year. Nakamura hit .273/.351/.485 in 37 plate appearances and 28 games for Seibu in 2004 while Jose Fernandez held down the third base job for the Lions. Nakamura did not play in the 2004 Japan Series. In 2005, the 21-year-old took over the third base role from Fernandez and hit .262/.320/.603 with 22 homers in 237 AB. Had he qualified, he would have been 4th in the Pacific League in slugging behind Nobuhiko Matsunaka, Julio Zuleta and Alex Cabrera. Rookie of the Year honors went to Yasutomo Kubo instead.

Following Fernandez's departure via free agency, hopes were high for the young slugger but he fell flat in 2006, batting .276/.359/.428 with 78 strikeouts in 283 AB and he only popped 9 homers. In 2007, his career fell further as he hit .230/.316/.394 with 71 strikeouts in 226 at-bats. Nakamura rebounded - and then some - in 2008. He hit .244/.320/.569. He led the Pacific League in runs (90), homers (46, 6 ahead of runner-up Tuffy Rhodes) and strikeouts (162). He was second in total bases (298, one behind Alex Cabrera), third in RBI (101, trailing Rhodes and Cabrera) and third in slugging (behind Cabrera and Rhodes). Nakamura also attended the 2008 NPB All-Star Games, but he was 0-for-3. He won his first Best Nine as the PL's best overall third baseman, but he also led PL third basemen in errors (22). He finished third in MVP voting behind Hisashi Iwakuma and teammate Hiroyuki Nakajima.

Nakamura extended his solid performance in 2009, and he blasted 48 homers with a .285/.359/.651 batting line. He led the league in homers and RBI, and he was 2nd in RBI (tied with Atsunori Inaba). He won another Best Nine, and he attended the 2009 NPB All-Star Games. Nakamura was 2-for-5 in Game 1, and he crushed a solo shot against Kan Otake in Game 2. He suffered from a right elbow injury in 2010, and he slumped to .234/.333/.539 with 25 homers. Nakamura still ranked 4th in homers, behind Takahiro Okada, Takeshi Yamasaki and Hitoshi Tamura. He also set the team record with his 9th grand slam, and he was the first player to hit double-digit grand slams in his first nine seasons.

The league lowered the ball's coefficient of restitution in 2011, but Nakamura was still productive and completed one of the greatest offensive seasons in NPB history. He blasted 48 homers with a .269/.373/.600 batting line, and he led the league in runs, homers, total bases, RBI, strikeouts, walks and slugging. He hit 10.57% of the homers in the league, and it was the first and only time in two-league era that a player hit more than 10% of a league's homers. He also hit more homers than the entire Chiba Lotte Marines (46), and he was the first player to hit more than a team's total homers since Futoshi Nakanishi in 1954. He had 23 more homers than runner-up Nobuhiro Matsuda, and he broke Sadaharu Oh's NPB record for the biggest difference between #1 and #2 in homers. Nakamura easily won his third Best Nine, and he was 3rd in MVP voting (249 points, behind Seiichi Uchikawa's 757 and Masahiro Tanaka's 414). He was also voted into the 2011 NPB All-Star Game, and he blasted 2 homers (against Shohei Tateyama and Kazuki Yoshimi) in Game 2 to win the MVP.

Nakamura suffered from a left knee injury in 2012, but he still managed to hit 25 homers with a .231/.331/.461 batting line. He led the league in homers again, and he was 2nd in RBI (79, 19 behind Dae-ho Lee). He won another Best Nine, and he was 0-for-6 in the 2012 NPB All-Star Games. Nakamura missed most of the 2013 season due to the same injury, and he only played 26 games with a .208/.316/.354 batting line. He returned in 2014, and he crushed 34 homers with a .257/.384/.579 batting line. Nakamura led the league in homers, tied with his teammate Ernesto Mejia, and it was the first time in NPB history that two players from the same team shared the home run title. He was also voted into the 2014 NPB All-Star Game, but he was hitless in four at-bats. Nakamura then attended the 2015 NPB All-Star Game, and he was 1-for-5 with a single against Hiroki Kuroda in Game 2. He ended up hitting .278/.367/.559 with 37 homers, and he led the league in homers, RBI (124) and strikeouts. Nakamura was the third player to lead the league in homers six times, following Oh and Katsuya Nomura. He also broke Oh's NPB record with his 16th grand slam on August 9 against the Orix Buffaloes.

Okawari-kun made it onto Japan's roster for the 2015 Premier 12, but he had a .150/.227/.150 batting line in 6 games. He suffered from injuries again, and he had a .238/.313/.447 batting line with 21 homers in 2016. Nakamura was 9th in homers, between Okada and Shohei Ohtani. His batting line fell to .217/.319/.446 in 2017, and he still managed to hit 27 homers. He ranked 6th in homers and 7th in RBI (79, between Zelous Wheeler and Carlos Peguero). He collected his 1,000th career RBI with a homer against Andrew Albers on August 7, 2018, and he was the first Seibu player to reach that benchmark. Nakamura blasted 28 homers that season with a .265/.329/.546 batting line in '18, and he was 6th in homers (between Alfredo Despaigne and Masataka Yoshida) and 10th in RBI (74, tied with Despaigne).

Nakamura crushed a homer against Ryoma Matsuda on July 10, 2019, and Matsuda was the 231st pitcher he had homered off. That broke Shinnosuke Abe's NPB record. Nakamura blasted 30 homers with a .286/.359/.528 batting line that season, and he led the league with 123 RBI. He was 6th in doubles (30) and 6th in homers (tied with N. Matsuda). Nakamura gained 485 points in the MVP voting, and he was 2nd behind Tomoya Mori's 1,189 points. He slumped to .213/.310/.372 in 2020, and he soon bounced back with a .284/.343/.440 batting line in 2021. Nakamura attended the 2021 NPB All-Star Game, but he was hitless in 3 at-bats. He ranked 9th in homers (tied with Hideto Asamura), 7th in RBI (between Leonys Martin) and 7th in batting (between Takashi Ogino and Shogo Nakamura). It was the first time that he made it to top ten in batting.

The veteran slugger broke Kazuhiro Kiyohara's NPB career strikeout record on July 6, 2022, and his batting line fell to .196/.241/.355 with 12 homers. The 39-year-old bounced back with a .258/.339/.481 batting line and 17 homers in 2023, and he was 7th in homers. Nakamura was also voted into the 2023 NPB All-Star Games, and he was 1-for-5, with a single against Suguru Iwazaki in Game 1. He broke Hiromichi Ishige's team record with 1,038 career runs, and he also became the first Lions player to hit 2 homers in a game while older than 40. On April 9, 2024, Nakamura crushed a homer against Rikuto Yokoyama, and he became the first Seibu player to hit a homer in 22 consecutive seasons. Nakamura hit .191/.254/.372 in the 2024 season, and he went 23-for-96 in 2025.

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