Kazuhiro Wada

Who is Kazuhiro Wada?

Kazuhiro Wada is a Japanese professional baseball player. He currently plays outfield for the Chunichi Dragons of the Nippon Professional Baseball league.

Playing for Tohoku Fukushi University, he was MVP of the Sendai Big Six University League as a senior and won the batting title. He hit .429 for Kobe Seiko in the industrial leagues, then in 1996 was drafted in the fourth round of the Japanese draft by the Seibu Lions. He hit .190 in 1997 when he first played for Seibu and was 0/1 in the 1997 Japan Series. In 1998, Wada hit .333 in 36 games for Seibu and split his time between catching and the outfield. He went 0/2 in the 1998 Japan Series. In 1999, he batted .271 while again seeing limited time behind the plate, with Tsutomu Ito starting.

In 1998, Wada began playing semiregularly as an outfielder, batting .306, the same average he recorded the next year. He still not yet an everyday player. In 2002, Wada finally became a starter and responded by batting .319 with 33 homers. Playing left field and DH, he made the Best Nine as the top designated hitter in the Pacific League. He finished third in slugging behind teammates Alex Cabrera and Kazuo Matsui.