Former Draft Candidate and Keio University Graduate Sends Support to Shogo Kiyohara

“I never thought I wouldn’t make it to the pros.”

“I’m sure Kiyohara-kun is receiving many job offers from various companies, but I hope he takes the time to find what he truly wants to do, even if it means becoming a job-hunting ronin.”

Shogo Kiyohara (22), a graduate of Keio University, was not selected in last October’s professional baseball draft and chose to pursue a career in business. Being the son of former professional baseball player Kazuyoshi Kiyohara (57), he attracted significant attention during the draft, but unfortunately, his path to the pros did not materialize. The person who spoke about him was Seigo Yada (31), who once excelled in Keio University’s baseball team and later experienced three missed draft selections himself. Now working as a business owner, Yada passionately shared insights about his own baseball career and his feelings toward his university junior, Shogo.

“It might only have been recently that I was able to truly reflect on not being drafted, digest it within myself, and speak about it with honest feelings. Back then, I was just in complete shock. I had received 11 scouting reports from 11 of the 12 teams, so I never even imagined that I wouldn’t be selected. I hadn’t considered the possibility of not making it to the pros, so right after the draft, I was just thinking, ‘Seriously?'”

Yada, who hit 76 home runs during his high school career at Keio High School, went on to Keio University, where he became a regular starting player from his second year in the spring. Known as the “second coming of Yoshinobu Takahashi” (former Giants player) due to being a left-handed slugger like his senior, he was noticed early as a draft prospect. During his time at university, he hit 15 home runs and was selected for the university’s national team, with expectations of being chosen in the upper rounds of the draft.

In 2015, during his fourth-year autumn, the scouting reports from NPB teams began arriving as the autumn season started.

“There’s a section where you write about why you want to join the NPB, and I took great care in writing each of the 11 reports with my thoughts, keeping the character limit in mind. I didn’t set any restrictions on draft position either, like saying I wouldn’t join unless I was picked above a certain rank. I was willing to join any team, at any position, as long as it was a contracted team.”

And then came the fateful draft. Yada was watching the draft broadcast in his university dorm. As the names of his classmates, Toshitaka Yokoo (Nippon Ham to Rakuten) and Taikan Yamamoto (Giants to Tigers to Dragons), were called out, Yada’s name was never mentioned.

Eventually, Yada joined the corporate team JX-ENEOS, but he continued to struggle with the feelings from that time for a while.

“Two years later, I absolutely had to go pro. I had to do something about it, but if I couldn’t make it then… That was my mindset. On the other hand, it wasn’t helpful. I put so much pressure on myself thinking, ‘I have to perform well in the Corporate League,’ and it made things worse.”

Despite that, in his first year, Yada achieved impressive stats in runs batted in and home runs, ranking among the top in the nation for corporate teams and almost securing a triple crown. He felt a sense of achievement, believing he could succeed at the corporate level as well.

However, during his second year, he struggled right from the start, going 0-for-7 in his first tournament.

“In my mind, I thought, ‘It’s okay to have two games without a hit,’ but there are a lot of good players at ENEOS. For the team to win, it’s better to use players who are in better form than those struggling. The team wasn’t playing baseball just to turn me into a professional player. They were playing to win.”

Yada knew that he had a tendency to be inconsistent, and although he had been kept in the lineup during his first year despite some fluctuations in form, in his second year, he was suddenly benched. From then on, he experienced a situation he had never encountered before in his baseball career: being used as a pinch hitter.

“Since Little League, I had always been a regular, a key player, so I had never been in a pinch-hitting role. That began during this period, and although I knew I had to deliver results to make it to the pros, I was mainly used as a pinch hitter. The pressure got to me, and I started spinning my wheels. I might have been disconnected from the team. I was tense, and I probably made myself hard to deal with at the time.”