Rui Okoye, who transferred from Rakuten to the Giants in the first professional baseball "active draft" held this month, held a joining press conference and said, "I want to do my best with a feeling that there is no end. I will work from this off-season with the goal of the opening 1st army. I want to go," he said enthusiastically.
The "Active Draft" is a system that was introduced for the first time to give a new place to play by activating the transfer of players who are not blessed with the opportunity to participate. 12 people were nominated and transferred.
Of these, Okoye, a professional player who has transferred from Rakuten to the Giants for the 7th year, held a press conference on the 14th at the team office in Tokyo.
Okoye said, "I couldn't get a regular job at Rakuten and had a lot of injuries, so I joined the Giants in the active draft system and I'm happy to be able to play in my hometown of Tokyo. It's a team I've been watching since I was little, and I want to play for a local team. I had a feeling," he said.
He also expressed his enthusiasm, "I want to do my best with the feeling that there is no end to it. Now that I have joined the team, it is up to me to produce results or not. First of all, I would like to work on this off-season with the goal of being the opening 1st army."
Okoye joined Rakuten in 1st place in the 2016 draft.
With his high physical ability, he was expected to play an active role in both offense and defense, but he only appeared in 6 games this season. 9, 44 RBI.
Also, his jersey number has been decided as "50".