Professional baseball / Rakuten announced that it has acquired giant veteran catcher Ginjiro Sumitani through a monetary trade.
Sumitani is from Kyoto prefecture and is 33 years old in his 16th year as a professional player.
It is a catcher with a strong defense that won the "Golden Glove Award" twice.
Joined Seibu in the first round of high school draft in 2006, participated in more than 100 games for 7 consecutive years from the 6th year to support the team, and exercised the rights of FA = free agent 3 years ago to become a giant I transferred.
This season, the final year of the contract, he has played 44 games so far and has a batting average of 10%, 8 minutes and 8 minutes, but he has brought out the goodness of young pitchers with his experienced lead.
Rakuten, to which Sumitani will transfer, is currently in second place in the Pacific League, and has played in 67 games with the most catchers, Otappi, in his third year, but no player has a track record.
In addition, the team includes pitchers Hideaki Wakui and Takayuki Kishi, who had assembled batteries during the Seibu era, and it seems that the aim is to increase the player base by joining veterans in preparation for the league championship for the first time in eight years.
Sumitani said, "It's been two and a half years since I came to the Giants, and it's a treasure for me to be able to fight everyone in the Giants uniform and to have the leaders guide me. I will do my best to fight the Giants in the Japan Series, "he commented through the giant.