is a Japanese

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Mod ...

infielder An infielder is a baseball player stationed at one of four defensive "infield" positions on the baseball field. Standard arrangement of positions In a game of baseball, two teams of nine players take turns playing offensive and defensive roles. ...

for the

Tokyo Yakult Swallows The Tokyo Yakult Swallows () are a Japanese professional baseball team competing in Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. Based in Shinjuku, Tokyo, they are one of two professional baseball teams based in Tokyo, the other being the Yom ...

Nippon Professional Baseball or NPB is the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning ''Professional Baseball''. Outside Japan, it is often just referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league can be traced back to the formation ...

(NPB). Yamada made his NPB debut in 2012 with Yakult. He has won the

Central League The or is one of the two professional baseball leagues that constitute Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship plays against the winner of the Pacific League in the annual Japan Series. It currently consist ...

MVP award, has received the

Best Nine Award The Best Nine Award is awarded annually to the best player at each position in both the Central League and Pacific League of Japanese professional baseball as determined by a pool of journalists. History While the Best Nine Award was first presen ...

six times, has been selected to six NPB All-Star Series appearances, and has a

Japan Series The Japan Series ( , officially the Japan Championship Series, ), also the Nippon Series, :File:2014_JS_logo.png is the annual championship series in Nippon Professional Baseball, the top baseball league in Japan. It is a best-of-seven series ...

championship. He has led the Central League in

stolen bases In baseball, a stolen base occurs when a runner advances to a base to which they are not entitled and the official scorer rules that the advance should be credited to the action of the runner. The umpires determine whether the runner is safe or ...

three times and

home runs In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

once, hitting 30 home runs and stealing 30 bases in a single season on four occasions. In 2014 he broke the single season record for most hits by a Japanese right-hander in the NPB, and in 2015 became the first player in NPB history to lead his league in home runs and stolen bases in the same season. He has been compared to

Mike Trout Michael Nelson Trout (born August 7, 1991) is an American professional baseball center fielder for the Los Angeles Angels of Major League Baseball (MLB). Trout is a ten-time MLB All-Star, three-time American League (AL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) ...

for his combination of power and speed. Yamada has also played for the Japanese national team

Samurai Japan were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the ''daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They had ...

. In 2014 and 2018, he won the

MLB Japan All-Star Series The MLB Japan All-Star Series is an irregular end-of-the-season tour of Japan made by an All-Star team from Major League Baseball (MLB) since 1986, contested in a best-of format against the All-Stars from Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) or ...

with them. He has played for Japan in the

WBSC Premier12 The WBSC Premier12 is the international baseball tournament organized by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), featuring the 12 highest-ranked national baseball teams in the world. The first tournament was held by Taiwan and Japan i ...

tournaments of 2015 and 2019, and was on the Japanese team during the

2017 World Baseball Classic The 2017 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international professional baseball competition, composed of 16 competing nations, held from March 6 to March 22, 2017. It was the fourth iteration of the World Baseball Classic. The first-round hosts ...

. In 2021, he was selected to the host nation's team for the

2020 Tokyo Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

, where he won both the gold medal and the MVP award.

Early life

Yamada was born in Toyooka,

Hyōgo Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and has a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to the southeast, an ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. His father, Tomonori, was a police officer who had competed in

Shorinji Kempo is a Japanese martial art claimed to be a modified version of Shaolin Kung Fu. The name ''Shōrinji Kempo'' is the Japanese reading of ''Shàolínsì Quánfǎ''. It was established in 1947 by , a Japanese martial artist and former military ...

in high school. As a child, Yamada did karate and gymnastics, and played soccer when he was in first grade. He started playing baseball as an outfielder in Takarazuka Little League when he was in second grade. After starting middle school, Yamada played for Hyōgo Itami, a team in the Japanese youth baseball organization Young League. He attended Riseisha High School in

Toyonaka, Osaka is a city in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The city was founded on October 15, 1936. Geography Climate Toyonaka has a Humid subtropical climate (Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by warm summers and cool winters with light to no snowfall. The averag ...

with

Takahiro Okada Takahiro Okada (岡田貴弘, born February 9, 1988, in Suita), playing as T-Okada (T-岡田), is a Japanese professional baseball outfielder and first baseman for the Orix Buffaloes in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball. He changed his play ...

, and played in the

Japanese High School Baseball Championship The of Japan, commonly known as , is an annual nationwide high school baseball tournament. It is the largest scale amateur sport event in Japan. The tournament, organized by the Japan High School Baseball Federation and ''Asahi Shimbun'', t ...

during his third year. In the

2010 Nippon Professional Baseball draft The 2010 Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) Draft was held on October 28, , for the 46th time at the Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa to assign amateur baseball players to the NPB. It was arranged with the special cooperation of Toshiba with official n ...

, Yamada was named by the

and the

Orix Buffaloes The are a Nippon Professional Baseball team formed as a result of the 2004 Nippon Professional Baseball realignment by the merger of the Orix BlueWave of Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes of Osaka, Osaka Prefectur ...

. Yakult won the rights to his negotiation, and he signed with them for a 7.2 million yen contract on November 25, 2010.

Professional career

Tokyo Yakult Swallows

Yamada did not play any

regular season In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of Se ...

games with Yakult in 2011, but played in every game with the Eastern League farm team. He finished the season with a .259

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

. His first NPB appearance was on November 3, 2011, when he started the second game of the Climax Series Final Stage against the

Chunichi Dragons The are a professional baseball team based in Nagoya, the chief city in the Chūbu region of Japan. The team plays in the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball. They have won the Central League pennant nine times (most recently in 2011) ...

, in which he went 0-for-4.

2012-2014: Early career

On April 5, 2012, at age 19, Yamada made his regular season NPB debut. He was limited to 24 games and hit one home run with a .250/.327/.364 in 49 plate appearances. In 2013, Yamada played in 94 games and improved his hitting performance, striking out 37 times and walking 39 times. He hit 3 home runs, stole 9 bases, and hit .283/.354/.357. In 2014, Yamada had a breakout season in his first full season as an everyday player. In 143 games, he hit 29 home runs, 39 doubles and 89 RBI, stole 15 bases and hit .324/.403/.539, and was named an All-Star for the first time in his career.

2015: MVP season

In 2015, Yamada was named

MVP after leading the league in home runs (38), doubles (38), runs scored (119), and stolen bases (34). This marked the first time any NPB player led the league in home runs and stolen bases in the same year. He also notched 100 RBI and slashed .329/.416/.610, and was named an All-Star for the second straight season. In the

Climax Series The is the current annual playoff system implemented by Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). It determines which team from the Central League (CL) and from the Pacific League (PL) will advance to compete for the championship in the Japan ...

, Yakult beat the

Yomiuri Giants The are a Japanese professional baseball team competing in Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. Based in Bunkyo, Tokyo, they are one of two professional baseball teams based in Tokyo, the other being the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. They ...

to advance to the

for the first time since 2001. In game 3 of the Japan Series, Yamada hit home runs in three consecutive plate appearances. In assessing his MVP season in October 2015, the Japan Times wrote, "Yamada had a 2015 the likes of which is seldom seen in Japanese baseball."

2016-2020

In 2016, he followed up his MVP campaign by hitting 38 home runs, 26 doubles, and 102 RBI. He also scored 102 runs, stole 30 bases, hit .304/.425/.607, and was named an All-Star for the third straight year. In 2017 with the team, Yamada batted .247/.364/.435 with 24 home runs and 78 RBI in 143 games with the team. In 2018, Yamada was selected to the 2018 NPB All-Star game, the fourth selection of his career. On the season, he hit .315/.432/.582 with 34 home runs and 89 RBI. Yamada earned an All-Star appearance for the fifth time in his career in 2019, and finished the year with a .271/.401/.560 slash line and 35 home runs and 98 RBI in 142 games. In the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

delayed season in 2020, Yamada played in 94 games and logged a batting line of .254/.346/.419 with 12 home runs and 52 RBI.

2021: Japan Series Championship

Yamada hit .269/.359/.561 with 25 home runs and 65 RBI in 79 games to begin the 2021 season, and was named an All-Star for the sixth time.

International career

Yamada represented the

Japan national baseball team The is the national team representing Japan in international baseball competitions. It won the World Baseball Classic in 2006 and 2009, as well as WBSC Premier12 in 2019. The team is currently ranked 1st in the world by the World Baseball Sof ...

in the 2014 MLB Japan All-Star Series, 2015 exhibition games against Europe,

2015 WBSC Premier12 The 2015 WBSC Premier12 was an international baseball championship sponsored by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), the inaugural event of the WBSC Premier12. It was held from November 8 to 21 in Taiwan and Japan. The South Korean ...

, 2016 exhibition games against

Chinese Taipei "Chinese Taipei" is the term used in various international organizations and tournaments for groups or delegations representing the Republic of China (ROC), a country commonly known as Taiwan. Due to the One-China principle stipulated by th ...

, 2016 exhibition games against

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

2018 MLB Japan All-Star Series The 2018 MLB Japan All-Star Series was the twelfth edition of the MLB Japan All-Star Series, a best-of-six series between an All-Star team from Major League Baseball (MLB) and for the second time in series history, the Japanese national team, Sa ...

and

2019 WBSC Premier12 The 2019 WBSC Premier12 was an international baseball championship featuring the 12 highest-ranked national teams in the world, held by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC). It was the second WBSC Premier12 event. The championship ...

. On October 10, 2018, he was selected at the 2018 MLB Japan All-Star Series. On October 1, 2019, he was selected to Team Japan for the 2019 WBSC Premier12. In 2021, Yamada played for Team Japan at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Overall, he went 7-for-20 with a home run and seven RBIs, starting in all five games the team played. He hit a 3-run home run in the third inning of a 7-4 win over

. His bases-loaded double in the semifinal round against

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

gave Japan a 5-2 lead, which they maintained and secured a spot in the final. In the gold medal match versus the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, he scored the second of two runs in Japan's 2-0 victory. Yamada was named the Tokyo 2020 MVP by the

World Baseball Softball Confederation World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC; french: Confédération internationale de baseball et softball) is the world governing body for the sports of baseball, softball, and Baseball5. It was established in 2013 by the merger of the Inter ...

References

External links

NPB.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yamada, Tetsuto 1992 births Living people Nippon Professional Baseball MVP Award winners Nippon Professional Baseball second basemen Baseball people from Hyōgo Prefecture Tokyo Yakult Swallows players 2015 WBSC Premier12 players 2017 World Baseball Classic players 2019 WBSC Premier12 players Baseball players at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic baseball players of Japan Olympic medalists in baseball Olympic gold medalists for Japan Medalists at the 2020 Summer Olympics Japanese baseball players