{"id":581011,"date":"2026-02-19T12:57:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/581011\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T12:57:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:57:15","slug":"the-next-ichiro-how-nori-aoki-became-a-royals-fan-favorite-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/581011\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Next Ichiro”: How Nori Aoki Became A Royals Fan Favorite – History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWith the World Baseball Classic coming up,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0nice to look back on how far the tournament has come since\u00a0its\u00a0inception in 2006. If you look at the rosters from that year\u2019s\u00a0tournament,\u00a0there are several players who were or would end up playing for the Royals. Guys like Matt Stairs<\/a>,\u00a0Bruce Chen<\/a>, and Benji Gil<\/a> would all end up playing for the Royals at some point.\u00a0However,\u00a0there is one player who really stands out among the rest. This future Royals player would be labeled the next Ichiro and have one of the most\u00a0storied careers in recent Japanese baseball history;\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0also a one-time Royals player. This player is Nori Aoki<\/a>, and his journey to the Royals was\u00a0a\u00a0rather interesting\u00a0one.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tNorichika Aoki was born\u00a0on January 5th,\u00a01982,\u00a0in\u00a0Hyuka, Miyazaki, Japan. He\u00a0started\u00a0playing baseball at\u00a0an early age\u00a0and\u00a0later attended Miyazaki Prefectural\u00a0Hyuga\u00a0High School. He was a pitcher\u00a0all throughout high\u00a0school, but\u00a0converted to outfield when he attended\u00a0Waseda\u00a0University\u00a0in 2000.\u00a0Aoki was just one of several talented players who led\u00a0Waseda\u00a0to\u00a0four straight Tokyo Big6\u00a0titles, Japan\u2019s version of the NCAA.\u00a0Aoki played\u00a0alongside future pros\u00a0like Takashi\u00a0Toritani, Shintaro Yoshida, and\u00a0Tsuyoshi Wada<\/a>. Throughout his college career, Aoki\u00a0had a batting average\u00a0of .332 without hitting a single home\u00a0run\u00a0while also being selected for the\u00a0Best Nine Award three times. He would be drafted in the fourth round of the Nippon\u00a0Professional Baseball draft by the Yakult Swallows.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAoki would only play 10 games in 2004, but 2005 would kickstart his illustrious career in NPB.\u00a0He\u00a0would\u00a0finish the year with\u00a0the Most Valuable Rookie award\u00a0and the Central League Batting Title. He hit .344, stole\u00a041 bases, and\u00a0collected\u00a0202 hits,\u00a0becoming\u00a0just the second player in NPB history to record 200 hits in a season. He would build off that\u00a0success\u00a0the next year,\u00a0participating\u00a0in that year\u2019s World Baseball Classic, and be named All-Star\u00a0Game\u00a0MVP in his home ballpark.\u00a0He would finish the year with 192 hits, eight short of his goal, but would\u00a0increase\u00a0his on-base percentage\u00a0by nine points. He expressed\u00a0interest in going to the MLB via the posting system,\u00a0but the Swallows were not interested in selling him.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe next five seasons\u00a0would\u00a0cement Aoki\u2019s name as one of the best contact hitters in NPB history.\u00a0He would rack up 887 hits and had a batting average under .300 once in that timespan.\u00a0He would become the fastest player in NPB\u00a0history to collect 500 hits, doing so in 373 games.\u00a0He won the batting title two more times in 2007 and 2010, and\u00a0was\u00a0given an All-Star, Best Nine, and Golden Glove every year\u00a0during this\u00a0time period. After the 2011 season, he was posted\u00a0by\u00a0the\u00a0Swallows\u00a0and signed a two-year deal with the Brewers.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tHe would put up solid numbers during his time in Milwaukee, posting a bWAR of 3.2, a batting average of .288, and finishing fifth in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2012. He would be the everyday right fielder, where he would start hot but steadily decline throughout the year, finishing with a batting average of .286.\u00a0He would then be\u00a0flipped to Kansas City on December 5th, 2013, and would begin a memorable tenure with the Royals.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAoki would be the leadoff hitter for a majority of the season and finished the year\u00a0with a triple slash of .285\/.349\/.360.\u00a0He would hit exactly one home run during his time in Kansas City,\u00a0and it was\u00a0a grand slam against the Diamondbacks on August 6th. It would be the only grand slam he would hit\u00a0while in MLB.\u00a0Aoki would also set a Royals record for most hits in a three-game series with 11 against the White Sox, surpassing Willie\u00a0Wilson\u00a0and George Brett<\/a>\u2019s record\u00a0of 10 hits.\u00a0He would also be known for getting hit in the private parts\u00a0while attempting\u00a0to make a catch against\u00a0the Blue Jays. Aoki would\u00a0make an impact with the Royals in the postseason as he would score the Royals\u2019 first run in the\u00a0Wild Card game against the A\u2019s and would also hit a sacrifice fly that would tie the game in the ninth inning. He would be the starting right fielder throughout the playoffs,\u00a0but he only hit .195. He would become a free agent after the season ended and signed with the Giants.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAoki\u00a0would continue to play\u00a0in\u00a0MLB\u00a0until 2017, when he decided to return to Japan to sign a three-year deal with the Swallows.\u00a0He would record his 4,000th\u00a0career at-bat and\u00a0qualified to become NPB\u2019s lifetime batting champion with a career batting average of .328.\u00a0He would retire in 2024 and is now the general manager for the Swallows.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile his time with the Royals was just one year, he\u00a0certainly made his impact felt during that one season. Who knows how the Royals\u00a0would\u2019ve\u00a0finished if it\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0for his services?\u00a0We\u2019ll never know, but one thing is for certain: Aoki is one of the best contact hitters Japanese baseball has ever seen.\u00a0While he may not have had that same impact in Major League Baseball, he was still able to carve out a stellar career.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0unfortunate that his time in Royals blue was short-lived, but\u00a0he\u2019ll\u00a0certainly be remembered for decades to come.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the World Baseball Classic coming up,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0nice to look back on how far the tournament has come since\u00a0its\u00a0inception…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2302],"tags":[5,55,2353,66868,2352],"class_list":["post-581011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-npb","tag-baseball","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-nippon-professional-baseball","tag-nori-aoki","tag-npb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116097414035901951","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}