Naoki Matoba

Naoki Matoba (的場 直樹)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 187 lb.

• School Meiji University
• High School Uenomiya High School

• Born May 9, 1977 in Osaka, Osaka Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Naoki Matoba has played in Nippon Pro Baseball and for the Japanese national team.

Matoba represented Japan in 1998 Asian Games, 1998 Baseball World Cup, 1999 Asian Championship and 1999 Intercontinental Cup. In the 1998 World Cup, he was 0 for 7 with four whiffs, backing up Akihito Fujii; he did throw out one of two who tried to steal. In the 1999 Intercontinental Cup, he hit .130/.259/.130 as Japan's starting backstop but threw out the only runner who tried to steal and had 74 chances error-free. The Fukuoka Daiei Hawks drafted him in the third round of the 1999 NPB draft. The Hawks already had superstar catcher Kenji Johjima, so Matoba mainly play backup to him in the first four years of his career. The team lost the 2000 Japan Series and won the 2003 Japan Series; he did not play in either event.

When Johjima joined the Seattle Mariners in 2005, Matoba was named the starting catcher of the Hawks. He played a career-high 82 games with a .146/.197/.190 batting line. However, his poor batting made him lose the competition with Katsuki Yamazaki in 2007, and he only played 43 games combined in 2007 and 2008. The Hawks released him after he spent the whole 2009 season in the NPB Farm Leagues. The Chiba Lotte Marines picked him up when their original catcher Tomoya Satozaki was injured. Matoba hit .160/.212/.213 in 74 games in 2010, but he only had 70 at-bats in 2011. He couldn't come back to the big club in the whole 2012 season, and announced his retirement after that season. He was an assistant battery coach for the Marines from 2018 to 2022, and served as battery coach for the Rakuten Golden Eagles since 2023.

Overall, Matoba had hit .161/.211/.229 in 9 seasons in NPB.

Sources

• NPB site
• Wiki Japan