Reia Nakachi
Reia Nakachi is a professional Japanese baseball player. He plays pitcher for the Chunichi Dragons.
Early career
Nakachi started playing baseball while at Yomitan Village Furugen Elementary School, and while at Yomitan Village Furugen Middle School, he started playing with Chatan Boys. Chasing after his 2-year senior brother, Kuore, Nakachi entered Okinawa Prefectural Kadena Senior High School. In summer of his first year, his team made it to the Japanese High School Baseball Championship with his brother as the team's ace, but Nakachi hadn't even made the bench. From his second year however, Nakachi would perform as the team's ace but unfortunately was unable to emulate his brother's experience at Koshien, going as far as the semi-finals of the Okinawan Prefectural tournament where he lost out to Kōnan High School's, Hiroya Miyagi.Nakachi would join Okinawa University, starting on the bench in his first year. In spring of his third year in the All Japan Baseball Championship, he would pitch 8 innings for one earned-run against Meijo University, collecting the interest of scouts.
On September 10, 2022, Nakachi submitted his expression of interest to become a professional baseball player. The Chunichi Dragons would late make public that they would be selecting Nakachi with their first-round pick, and on October 19, the Dragons would make well on the word selecting Nakachi in the first round of the 2022 Nippon Professional Baseball draft. Upon selection, he became the first Okinawa University alumni to be selected in the draft. On 7 November, Nakachi signed a contract worth ¥16,000,000 per year with a sign-on bonus of ¥100,000,000 and ¥50,000,000 in incentives.