Rakuten Eagles pitcher Kenta Maeda, who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Major League Baseball, held a press conference at Rakuten Eagles Mobile in Sendai on the 16th. This marks his return to Japanese baseball for the first time in 11 years. number has been decided to be 18.
Maeda appeared in a black suit and began by saying, "Thank you everyone for coming to my press conference today. Starting next season, I will be playing for Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. My name is Maeda Kenta."
He is the third player to wear number 18 for Rakuten Eagles, following Tsuneki Watanabe and Masahiro Tanaka (currently The Giants), but he is best remembered for his undefeated season in 2013 with 24 wins and 0 losses. He was instrumental in the team's first-ever Japan Series championship.
However, Maeda himself has a special attachment to the number 18, a number he has worn, including during his time with Hiroshima. "The number 18 is a very important number in my professional baseball career. I hesitated, but (Tanaka Masahiro) is the player I aspired to be like. The player I followed in his footsteps. I'm happy to be able to wear the number 18 on this team. There may be some fans who have negative feelings about it, but I want to do my best so that they can see my attitude of fighting with all my might to help the team win, so I've decided to wear the number 18."
On December 15th, he was informed that number would be 18. He quickly contacted The Giants' Masahiro Tanaka. "I was told yesterday that it would be 18, so I asked him if it would be okay for me to wear it," he said, and he received his approval.
Maeda, who joined Hiroshima as a first-round draft pick in 2006, won the Sawamura Award and Most Wins twice, in 2010 and 2015, respectively, and has a total of 97 wins in the NPB. He transferred to the Dodgers via the posting system in the offseason of 2015, then played for the Twins and The Tigers, and has been playing for the Yankees' Triple-A affiliate, Scranton, since August this season. He has a total of 165 wins in Japan and the US.
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