is a professional Japanese

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

player. He plays

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

for the

Chunichi Dragons The are a professional baseball team based in Nagoya, the chief city in the Chūbu region of Japan. The team plays in the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball. They have won the Central League pennant nine times (most recently in 2011) ...

Early life

As a student of Aichi Prefectural Konan High School, as he was only 150cm tall he gave up playing baseball to play as a libero for the school's

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

team. However, while at high school, Matsuda grew to 175cm and he looked to return to baseball at university. In 2016, Matsuda passed the exam to enter the Economics Department of Nagoya University where he joined the baseball club. On 17 October 2019, Matsuda was selected as the 1st draft pick in the development player round for the

at the 2019 NPB Draft and on 11 November signed a development player contract with a ¥2,000,000 moving allowance and a ¥3,000,000 yearly salary.

Pitching style

Matsuda's fastball tops out at 148 km/h which he pairs with a cutter, slider, curveball, change-up and two-seam fastball.

Personal

At University, his black rimmed glasses were his trademark but as he was selected by the Dragons, he upgraded to blue frames. He has said he aspires to be like Masahiro Yamamoto.

References

External links

NPB.jp
{{DEFAULTSORT:Matsuda, Hiroaki 1997 births Living people Baseball people from Aichi Prefecture People from Iwakura, Aichi Japanese baseball players Nagoya University alumni Nippon Professional Baseball pitchers Chunichi Dragons players