Five Years With SoftBank
Koutaro Ohtake is a left-handed pitcher who went from Seiseiko High School to Waseda University and joined the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks as the fourth-round pick in the 2017 developmental player draft. With the top team, he went 3-2 with a 3.88 ERA in 11 games in 2018. In 2019 he went 5-4 with a 3.82 ERA in 17 games, pitching 106 innings including one complete game. He won two games in three appearances in 2020, but pitched in only two games in each of 2021 and 2022 and did not win. Over five years with SoftBank, he went 10-9 in 35 games.
The First Active-Player Draft
In the active-player draft on December 9, 2022, each of the 12 clubs selected one player from another club. Hanshin selected Ohtake from SoftBank. The Hanshin club announced his signing the same day. According to an interview in Sports Navi (December 15, 2023), Ohtake had sensed he might be picked in this first active-player draft. He said, "I thought it would be the active-player draft or a trade," citing that he alone had not been picked for the group going to the fall camp in Miyazaki and that he had gone two years without results. He said he had also been told at his SoftBank contract talks, "You're on the list of candidates." On the day of the draft, Ohtake was having lunch in Tokyo with Masanori Ishikawa of the Yakult Swallows and others. A call from the club told him what was coming, and he recalled, "From then on, I have no memory at all of how the food tasted." Of his feelings on learning his new club, he said, "It's hard to put into words, but I was happy it was Hanshin." Because manager Akinobu Okada was a senior from Waseda University and Hanshin had crafty left-handers such as Masashi Itoh, he thought, "I have a chance too."
Twelve Wins in His First Year After the Move
In 2023 he appeared in 21 games and went 12-2 with a 2.26 ERA. His 12 wins were the most on the team's pitching staff and included the first shutout of his career. He issued 12 walks in 131.2 innings. At the start of the article, the writer wrote that Ohtake had "shown one right answer for a new system everyone was feeling their way through." Asked what sparked his breakthrough, Ohtake replied, "I didn't suddenly awaken. I don't feel like I won a gamble," and added, "My ability hasn't changed at all." He said what he had learned about the quality of his fastball over two straight years of joining Tsuyoshi Wada's offseason workouts had taken shape. He said that while the Hawks placed weight on velocity, Hanshin had "a team culture that values not issuing walks and pitching low" and said he had met those needs. He put the reasons for his improvement at "about 70 percent foundation and 30 percent environment." Until then, his hurdle had been failing to pitch on the top team the way he pitched on the farm team, but he recalled that his mindset changed greatly after Yuki Nishi taught him what it takes to stay in the rotation for a full year.
One Question for Manager Okada
According to an excerpt from his book Kutsugaesu (Overturn), published in Shukan Baseball Online (March 31, 2026), when Ohtake called Okada after learning of the move, the only reply was "Oon, yoroshiku" ("Yeah, good to have you"). Even during the season they rarely spoke, but Ohtake said he could tell from how he was used that Okada trusted him, as if saying, "This game, this situation, I'm leaving it to you." Over the two years of 2023 and 2024, Ohtake spoke to the manager on his own initiative only once. It was in the summer of 2023, a stretch when he was often hit hard on the first pitch and kept failing to win. During pregame practice at Koshien, Ohtake asked, "What mindset should I pitch with?" Okada answered, "Running away and going ball, ball isn't right. Why not treat the first pitch as your putaway pitch?" Ohtake realized that a first pitch thrown to get a strike and a first pitch meant to decide the at-bat are different in quality. He wrote in the book, "Once my doubts were gone, I was able to start piling up wins again." He also recalled feeling that Okada cared deeply about his players and was trying to make them into full-fledged professionals.
Four Straight Years in the 2s
In 2024 he went 11-7 with a 2.80 ERA in 24 games. His 144.2 innings were the most of his four years with Hanshin. In 2025 he went 9-4 with a 2.85 ERA in 16 games and threw the second shutout of his career. In 2026 his losses outnumbered his wins at 7-9 in 18 games, but his ERA was 2.74. Over four years with Hanshin, he went 39-22 in 79 games, with an ERA in the 2s every year. His walks per nine innings fell from 2.03 over five years with SoftBank (41 in 181.1 innings) to 1.32 over four years with Hanshin (70 in 476 innings). He won 39 games in four years with his new club, nearly four times as many.