Japanese Baseball NPB Draft Anlysis - Takayuki Makka - Yokohama BayStars

Takayuki Makka - Pitcher - Tokai Boyo High School
  DOB : 4/19/91  
  age : 18  
  throws / hits : L / L  
  height cm : 188  
  weight kg : 76  
  height inch : 74.0                Yokohama BayStars 
  weight lbs : 167.6                  round 4

Takayuki Makka is another pitcher in the same mold of Yokohama’s 3rd round pick, Taketora Anzai. Makka is a tall, lanky pitcher who uses his frame well in his delivery. Makka is a left-handed and is less polished than Anzai. Makka uses his off-speed pitches more often because of his lack of a deceptive fastball to get strikes with. Although Makka can throw in the 147 km range, his fastballs have no life and often get hit hard. Makka’s best weapon is his drop curve. Using a nice drop curve with a well-placed fastball is how Makka gets most of his outs. Makka is rumored to have an attitude problem and some say he does not have his heart in the game. Despite this, his raw tools are good enough to play sparingly at the pro level if he adds weight, polishes his throws and gets his head in the game.
  
Outlook: Yokohama again goes after a long-term project at pitcher. Makka has nice raw tools but he is only has two reliable pitches and needs work shifting his weight in his delivery. I do not see Makka developing well enough to be a star or even a starter at the pro level. At best he can hope for fill-in duty or middle-relief work in 2013 or 2014 is he makes it to NPB. Yokohama is taking a chance on another young pitcher with good natural tools, but I do not see Yokohama being the best environment for a young pitcher who needs so much work at so many aspects of his game. I think Yokohama will lose this gamble.

Brandon Siefken has covered Japanese pro and amateur baseball since 1991. He is currently an intern for a Major League Baseball team and has been quoted in Bloomberg, The New York Times and other publications regarding Japanese baseball. Brandon is a regular writer for Bob Bavasi’s JapanBall.com site and has authored several articles including “The Kuroda Index” and “Yu Darvish: A 315 Pitch Scouting Report.”

Each year Brandon publishes the “Japan Baseball News Weekly” ( http://www.japanbaseballnews.com/?page_id=1543 ) with updated weekly stats for every player from April to October. Brandon can be contacted at brandon@japanball.com.