Orix pitcher Shunpei Yamashita, who was selected as the Pacific League Rookie of the Year award, renewed his contract for next season with an annual salary of 3300 million yen, an estimated increase of 4000 million yen, and expressed his determination to "achieve better results than this year and become the best in Japan."
Yamashita is a 3-year-old pitcher in his third year as a professional. He took the mound for the first time in the season's opener start.
He racked up wins with a 21 kph straight and a sharp changeup, and was named Rookie of the Year after helping the team win three consecutive league titles before leaving the club with a back injury at the end of August.
On the 1rd, Yamashita renewed his contract for next season with an annual salary of 160 million yen, an estimated increase of 8 million yen.
At the press conference, Yamashita said, "Being evaluated made me want to work harder, but I still feel frustrated that I could have dealt with it better by taking care of my body before I left the team due to injury."
He decided that his uniform number for next season will be 9, the same as that of Major League Baseball pitcher Yu Darvish, who he admires, and said, "I wanted a uniform number that looked good like a pitcher. Next season, we want to achieve better results and become the best in Japan. To that end, I want to work on learning a new ball of change."