Munenori Kawasaki

Munenori Kawasaki (川﨑 宗則) is a Japanese professional baseball shortstop and second baseman for the Tochigi Golden Braves of Baseball Challenge League in Japan.

He has played in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, and in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Seattle Mariners, Toronto Blue Jays, and Chicago Cubs.

He was drafted in the fourth round of the 1999 NPB amateur draft by the then-Fukuoka Daiei Hawks.

Kawasaki earned the starting shortstop job for the Hawks' nigun team (Japanese for "minor league" or "farm team") in his rookie season (2000), hitting .300 and finishing fifth in the Western League in batting average that year.

In 2001, his second season in the pros, he came second (to only then-Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles outfielder Akihito Moritani) with 29 stolen bases.

He made his debut at the ichigun (major league) level on October 3 against the Orix BlueWave as the starting shortstop and No. 2 hitter, but went hitless in four at-bats that year.

Kawasaki hit .367 in the Western League the following year (2002), winning the batting title despite falling short of the required number of plate appearances because of league regulations.

He got the first hit of his career on June 15 against right-hander Jeremy Powell, then of the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes, and his first stolen base on June 19 against the Seibu Lions.

Kawasaki had a somewhat disappointing season in, seeing his batting average drop off from .303 in 2004 to .271 and his on-base percentage from .359 to just .326, knocking in just 36 runs and stealing only 21 bases.

Despite this, he was named to the Japanese national team to play in the inaugural World Baseball Classic during the off-season.

Coming off a championship in the inaugural World Baseball Classic, Kawasaki bounced back in, hitting a career-high .312 and winning the Pacific League Best Nine and Golden Glove awards at shortstop (each for the second time).

He also received the most fan votes at shortstop for the MLB Japan All-Star Series held in November, but withdrew from the tournament after injuring the ring finger on his right hand during Fall Training.

Kawasaki suffered various injuries in the season, twice spending time in the minors to rehab and playing just 95 games (though he hit .329 and slugged .428, both career highs).

Kawasaki's woes continued into as he attempted to play through an injury to his left foot.

He hit a team-high .366 in interleague games and collected 37 hits (leading the NPB), leading the Hawks to their first interleague title and winning the interleague Most Valuable Player (marking the first time a position player had been named to the award).

He played for the Japanese national team in the 2008 Beijing Olympics as well as the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classics.

Kawasaki was born in Aira, a former town in central Kagoshima Prefecture in the south of Japan.

He began playing baseball after his older brother got him into the sport.

Though he was a pitcher throughout his early years, Kawasaki switched to shortstop after enrolling in Kagoshima Prefectural Technical High School.

Kawasaki remained largely an unknown on the national level during his high school career, partly due to his team's failing to make any national tournaments in those three years.

Still, he made a name for himself locally, earning the nickname Satsurō, a portmanteau derived from Satsuma (the name given to a former province of Japan in present-day western Kagoshima) and former Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki's first name for the similarities in their playing styles.

However, though he was chosen to play in the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a member of the national team, he was diagnosed with periostitis during the tournament.

On August 25, Kawasaki was found to have a stress fracture in his second metatarsal bone upon returning to Japan after the Olympics.

He made an earlier-than-expected return, coming off the bench in the last game of the regular season (and then-manager Sadaharu Oh's last at the helm) on October 7 against the Eagles, but finished 0-for-2 with an intentional walk (the Hawks lost the game in extra innings).

Kawasaki signed a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training with the Seattle Mariners prior to the 2012 Major League Baseball season.

In his professional American debut, on March 2, 2012, Kawasaki went 0–3 against the Oakland Athletics, with two strikeouts, starting at shortstop.

He was replaced in the sixth inning by Carlos Triunfel.

On October 24, 2012, the Mariners announced they had released Kawasaki.

He hit .192/.257/.202 in 115 plate appearances in 61 games.

Kawasaki agreed to a minor league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays on March 14, 2013.

He started the 2013 season on the roster of the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons.

Kawasaki was called up to the Blue Jays on April 13 when José Reyes was added to the disabled list.

He was called up to the ichigun team again in September to fill in for Tadahito Iguchi as the team's regular second baseman while Iguchi missed time due to injury and also played in the 15th IBAF International Cup as a member of the Japanese national team.

In, Kawasaki started in the Hawks' season opener for the first time in his career because of injuries to veteran Yusuke Torigoe, starting at shortstop as the team's No. 2 hitter.

After Torigoe returned to the lineup, Kawasaki moved over to third base, wreaking havoc on the basepaths along with leadoff hitter Arihito Muramatsu and Iguchi (who sat in the 3-hole).

He hit his first career home run on July 28 off Buffaloes right-hander Ken Kadokura, and while he finished the season just short of .300, he played his first full season at the ichigun level and hit .294 with two homers, 51 RBI and 30 steals, playing a key role in the Hawks' league title and eventual Japan Series championship.

Kawasaki became the Hawks' starting shortstop for the season, playing in all 133 regular season games and hitting over .300 for the first time in his career.

He led the league in both hits (174, tied with teammate and cleanup hitter Nobuhiko Matsunaka) and steals (42) and was chosen to both the Best Nine and Golden Glove awards.

Kawasaki declined the team's offer to change his uniform number from 52 to 8 during the off-season.

(The number is an homage to Ichiro Suzuki, who wears the number 51; Kawasaki idolized Suzuki from a young age and picked the number because he wanted to "follow" in Suzuki's footsteps. )