Shōta Morishita
Shōta Morishita is a Japanese professional baseball outfielder for the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball.
Amateur career
Born in Yokohama City, Shōta played little league baseball in as early as first grade for the Nobahigiri Phoenix, playing mostly as an outfielder but he switched to 3rd base when he entered Higiriyama Junior High. He continued to play baseball for Tokai Sagami High where he secured the cleanup position and center field right from the start, and even got to participate in the Spring Koshien tournaments of 2018. He hit a total of 57 home runs in all his official appearances in high school.Despite gaining interest from some NPB teams, he didn't submit an application for the 2018 NPB draft and instead opted to enroll in Chuo University in Tokyo to study Finance. He still manned the outfield and was a regular in the lineup as his school participated regularly in the Tohto University Baseball League games. He got awarded best 9 in the 2019 spring season, and also got selected to play for the national team to play in the Japan-US College Baseball Championships. He recorded a total of 36 RBIs including 9 home runs, 0.240 batting average and 0.412 slugging percentage in 78 Tohto league appearances, and got awarded best nine twice.