Norihiro Nakamura was a standard issue slugger. Usually he’d have unexceptional batting averages (266 for his career), but smack a good number of home runs, topping out at 46 in 2001. As you expect for middle of the order guys, he wasn’t fast: 22 stolen bases for his career. In total he played 23 years and put up a 266/352/469 batting line, to go along with 404 home runs and 2101 hits. The bulk of his career he spent with Kintetsu: 1992 through 2004. Then he defected for the US, spending most of 2005 playing for Las Vegas, the Dodgers’ AAA team. He did play in the majors leagues, but only 17 games, and not well. In Las Vegas he hit 249/331/487. The first two numbers are as bad as they look. That last one looks like it’s healthy, but it isn’t really. The 51s play in the Pacific Coast League, and the PCL plays in some absurd parks. Imagine a league where most of the parks resemble Coors Field. That's the idea. Any PCL numbers have to be taken with huge heaping spoonfuls of salt, Nakamura’s included. That 487 slugging percentage was fourth-best on the team (among those who got regular playing time), trailing the immortals Bryan Myrow (547), Cody Ross (509), Chin-Feng Chen (495). All three of those guys played in the major leagues, but no, I don’t remember them either.*
After not managing to break into MLB, Nakamura returned to Japan, spending 2006 with Orix, and then jumped around for his last few seasons between Chunichi, Rakuten, and Yokohama. He had a couple good seasons left in his mid 30s, but was mostly over the hill after he came back from the US.
Orix decided that his poor play in his first season back in Japan merited a huge reduction in salary (down to about $800k). This did not sit will with Nakamura (understandably: after Ichiro left he had been the highest paid player in Japan), who did not sign the contract and was eventually released. Whether it was officially done or not, he was effectively blackballed the following season, and eventually forced to settle for what was essentially a minor league deal with the Dragons (later changed to a major league deal after he performed well). Although he ended up making much less money than he had turned down from Blue Wave, to some extent it worked out well. The Dragons won the Japan Series and Nakamura took home the series MVP award.
Going to the Dodgers in 2005 was Nakamura’s second attempt to come to the US. A few seasons earlier he had an agreement to join the Mets on a two year, seven million dollar deal. But the deal was announced on the Mets’ website before Nakamura had a chance to inform the Buffaloes about it, and he decided to back out of it and stay in Japan.
Nakamura was a third baseman, and between having good power, playing third, and having a long career, he probably produced quite a lot of value for his teams. Mostly in a compiling sort of way (his peak was there but not very long), but that’s valuable too. I wouldn't be surprised if he's elected to the hall of fame eventually. Superficially his stat line looks a lot like Paul Konerko’s, but there are some really big differences. First, Konerko was playing in some really high-offense environments, second, Konerko was a first baseman, and third, even by first base standards, Konerko was a pretty lousy fielder. So despite their superficial similarity, I’m comfortable saying that Nakamura was much better than Konerko. No comparable American player comes immediately to mind, however. The really good American third basemen either had better on-base skills than Nakamura, or shorter careers.
Meikyukai:
Yes - Hall of Fame:
No
The card is from a 2000 Upper Deck set. It’s weird. The design is obviously pretty strange, and on top of that it’s an odd size. Most Calbee cards are a little bit smaller than standard baseball cards, and this one is smaller than those. But it’s also larger than the tiny cards that Calbee made in the 80s.
*Just double checked these guys. Apparently Cody Ross had a real major league career. The other two did not. Myrow spent one season in Korea, but then was back to playing the in PCL. He was playing quite well around age 30, he seems like the kind of guy that you expect to try to jump to Japan, actually. Instead he played Indy ball for Grand Prairie through 2015.