Tetsuya Kokubo

Tetsuya Kokubo (小窪 哲也)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 9", Weight 170 lb.
• School Aoyama Gakuin University
• High School PL Gakuen High School

• Born April 12, 1985 in Katsuragi, Nara Japan

BR Register page

Biographical Information

Tetsuya Kokubo played in Nippon Pro Baseball for 14 years.

Kokubo was a shortstop in high school and played both middle infield spots in college. He represented Japan in the 2003 Asia Junior Championship. In the 2007 Baseball World Cup, he was the main third baseman for Japan, which won Bronze. He hit .313/.500/.313 with 7 runs in 8 games but fielded only .875 at the hot corner. In the Bronze Medal game, he started at DH and led off, going 0 for 2 with a sacrifice hit in a 3-0 win. The Hiroshima Carp in the third round of the 2007 NPB draft. As a rookie, he was their main shortstop, hitting .270/.338/.350 in 98 games in 2008, usually batting 8th.

The Nara native shared the starting shortstop spot with Eishin Soyogi and Takuro Ishii in 2009, and he hit .295/.371/.388 in 70 games. He played 81 games after he was moved to third base in 2010, but his batting line fell to .207/.290/.255. Kokubo then represented Japan in the 2010 Intercontinental Cup. He hit .261/.295/.352 in 65 games in 2011, and he missed most of the 2012 season due to an elbow injury; he only played 25 games with a .209/.244/.279 batting line. Kokubo came back in 2013, and he recorded a .264/.325/.409 batting line in 53 games. He was Hiroshima's main infield utility man in 2014, and he improved to .317/.365/.429 in 78 games in 2015.

Kokubo extended his stable performance in 2016 as his batting line was .296/.419/.366 in 2015, but he slumped to .217/.321/.402 in 69 games in 2016. He went 1-for-7 in the 2016 Nippon Series with a double against Hirotoshi Masui in Game 2, but the Carp lost to the Nippon Ham Fighters in 6 games. Kokubo had a 10-for-57 record in 2017, and he was 8-for-26 in 2018. He appeared in one game in the 2018 Nippon Series, and the Carp lost again to the Softbank Hawks. He had a .246/.306/.298 batting line in 2019, but he only got 3 at-bats in 2020 and he was released. The Chiba Lotte Marines signed him, and he went 1-for-18 in 2021 then he announced his retirement. The Carp named him their new batting coach in 2022.

Overall, Kokubo hit .257/.325/.348 with 386 hits and 19 homers in 14 seasons in NPB.

Sources

• IBAF
• Japanesebaseball.com
• Japanese Wikipedia entry