The 2019 WBSC Premier12 MVP, Seiya Suzuki, is dominating Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. The Hiroshima Toyo Carp slugger has so far hit 11 home runs in 44 games. His career-high 31 came after 125 games in the 2018 season.
Suzuki's 2020 NPB campaign has thus far resulted in 54 hits in 162 at-bats, good for a .333 batting average, 29 walks and 33 RBIs. He has struck out 27 times and his on-base percentage is .441. And he has a monster On-base Plus Slugging (OPS) of 1.058, at the time of writing.
Suzuki will celebrate his 26th birthday on Tuesday, 18 August. He is the reigning Central League Batting Champion. He is also the reigning gold glove winner as a right-fielder and has appeared in four consecutive NPB All-Star Games.
Suzuki starred in last year's II WBSC Premier12 . He was the leader in batting average, runs batted in, runs scored, slugging and on-base percentages.
He was named the tournament MVP after Japan won the final against Korea, as his National Team was crowned the Premier12 champion on home turf at the Tokyo Dome.
Suzuki, who made also the 2019 WBSC All-World Team as one of the outfielders, commented through an interpreter: "We have great hitters in front of me, and also behind me in the lineup. I only was thinking about connecting with the ball and scoring some runs. This mindset gave me the best results, and helped me to win the MVP award."
