Chunichi Dragons' 2019 Draft Picks and Evaluations

It's that time of year again for the draft.
To be honest, I'm not very familiar with high school baseball, college baseball, or amateur baseball.
Therefore, while I know the players who are talked about as potential first place finishers every year, I hardly know any of the other players.

However, I still want to get to know all the players who join the team I support.
As I write every year, I'll be writing about each player's pre-season reputation and what role I expect them to play, including some speculation.

First-round draft pick: Takaya Ishikawa (infielder, right-handed thrower, high school student, Toho High School)

He's a third baseman with impressive power, having hit 55 home runs in his high school career, and he's also the type of player who can hit long drives to the opposite field.
Because he also played as a pitcher, he has a very strong arm and his throws are very consistent.
With his impressive physique—185cm tall and 90kg—he is a very attractive player and a potential future cleanup hitter.

For the Chunichi Dragons, who are lacking a powerful right-handed hitter, he is a star player they would like to develop from their own roster.
For the Chunichi Dragons, who are planning to build a new home run terrace, acquiring Ishikawa seems like it could be a boost to their plans.
Currently, Takahashi Shu and Fukuda are performing well at third base in the first team, but I hope that in the future, they will become players who surpass them.
I can't help but fantasize about a future third base and shortstop combination with Neo batting third and Ishikawa batting fourth.

Second-round draft pick: Yuki Hashimoto (pitcher, left-handed thrower, university student, Ogaki Nichidai High School ⇒ Osaka University of Commerce)

He's a left-handed pitcher with a top speed of 148 km/h.
He throws with a small backswing, making it difficult to see the release point and time the throw.
His main weapon is a slider that reaches around 120 km/h, which he can use to get strikeouts from both left-handed and right-handed batters.
Despite being 183cm tall, he's slender at 72kg, making him a player reminiscent of Toshiya Okada of the Chunichi Dragons.

The Chunichi Dragons currently have many left-handed pitchers, both as starters and relievers, but there are few young left-handed pitchers, so I think this is a good pick.
Although he was drafted while still a university student, I think the selection was made with the expectation that he would be developed to some extent rather than being an immediate contributor.
I hope he improves his physical condition and control so that he can play an active role in the first team.

As an aside, I was surprised to learn that there is another local council member with the same name, Yuki Hashimoto, who is a former idol.

Third-round draft pick: Yuichiro Okano (pitcher, right-handed/right-handed thrower, corporate league player, Seikogakuin High School ⇒ Aoyama Gakuin University ⇒ Toshiba)

I'm a 25-year-old amateur pitcher.
He seems to be the type of pitcher who relies on a fastball in the high 140 km/h range, along with a variety of breaking balls such as changeups and forkballs.
His pitching form is similar to that of Chunichi's Yanagi, without a two-stage form, and his strength seems to be his stable pitching.

At 25 years old, he's a player we'd like to see contribute immediately as a starting pitcher from his first year.
Chunichi's main area of need is starting pitchers, so I hope he can add depth to their starting rotation.

Fourth-round draft pick: Yuya Gunji (Catcher, Right-handed thrower, University student, Sendai Ikuei High School ⇒ Keio University)

He's a college catcher with a strong arm and powerful hitting ability.
He possesses power hitting ability, the skill to hit to all fields, and a good eye for pitches, and as the cleanup hitter, he seems to have one of the highest batting averages in the league.
He seems to be a well-rounded player with a high level of skill, possessing a strong arm, throwing technique, and catching ability all at a professional level, and also running the 50-meter dash in 6.2 seconds.

For the Chunichi Dragons, who have lost many catchers, this is a position that they absolutely needed to draft, and it seems like this will be a year with many opportunities for Gunji.
Kato and Ohno are strong contenders for the first-team catcher position, but I think Kinoshita, Ishibashi, and Katsura can definitely compete for the spot.
It's a position where you have a lot to learn, so it might be difficult to make the first team right at the start of the season, but I think it's a position where you can aim to be the third-string catcher on the first team.
I hope that he will compete with Ishibashi and others and help each other raise the level of competition.

Fifth round pick: Yuki Okabayashi (pitcher, right-handed/left-handed thrower, high school student, Mie Prefectural Komono High School)

He's a true right-handed pitcher whose weapon is a fastball that reaches a maximum speed of 150 km/h.
He throws from directly above, and it seems he can get a lot of strikeouts with his fastballs.
His pitches tend to have a slight curve and he struggles with control, but his ability to overpower batters with a fast fastball is appealing.
He's probably the type of player like Kenichi Nakata, formerly of the Chunichi Dragons.

I'm afraid of reducing walks and losing the appeal of my fastball, so ideally, I'd like to become a pitcher who can effectively scatter pitches within the strike zone to get outs.
However, I feel that the Chunichi Dragons aren't very good at developing hard-throwing pitchers, so that's something I'm a little worried about.
強肩の外野手としての評価も高いので、打者転向もある程度見据えた指名と考えれば、納得の指名です。
Since they are high school students, they are raw talents, so I hope that with some time, they will develop into either one of them and become valuable assets to the team.

Sixth round pick: Ryushin Takeuchi (pitcher, right-handed/left-handed thrower, high school student, Sapporo Sosei High School)

He's a right-handed pitcher whose weapons are a fastball that reaches a maximum speed of 147 km/h and sharp breaking balls.
Apparently, he was originally on the slender side, but through training he gained weight and his pitching speed increased by nearly 10 kilometers per hour.
He's a player with great potential for growth, so whether or not the Chunichi Dragons can successfully develop him will be a real test of their abilities.
He will be the first player from that high school to be drafted into professional baseball, so I hope he does his best.

Developmental draft pick #1: Hiroaki Matsuda (pitcher, left-handed pitcher, university student, Konan High School ⇒ Nagoya University)

He's a left-handed pitcher with a fastball that reaches a maximum speed of 148 km/h and a wide variety of breaking balls.
He's an unusual player, having played volleyball in high school and only starting baseball in college, but that only makes him seem to have great potential for future growth.
I believe he's a player who can come up with his own ideas and work hard with a stoic attitude in a short period of time, so personally, I'll be keeping an eye on how he develops in the future.
While his unconventional background has garnered him more attention than anything else, I believe he's a genuinely promising talent as an athlete.

Overall review

Overall, I think it was a well-balanced draft, and a reasonably satisfying one.
If I were to give it a score, I'd say it's around 80 to 90 points.

Considering that we selected a position player as our first pick in last year's draft, and that we need to strengthen our starting pitching, we would have liked to try out for pitcher Okugawa.
However, if a local star prospect is snatched up by another team and performs well, it will affect future draft picks.
As a result, although we publicly declared that we would select Ishikawa as our first pick, it turned out to be an unexpected situation where three teams competed for him.
Losing the lottery in this situation would have put us in a very difficult position, but thanks to Manager Yoda drawing the winning pick, it turned out to be a very good draft overall.

Our first pick was to acquire Ishikawa, a local star, but I think we were able to steadily make selections that addressed our weaknesses from second place onwards.
Personally, I wanted to strengthen the team in the order of pitcher, catcher, and outfielder, and it mostly worked out that way.
To aim for a top-tier finish, strengthening the team with more power hitters and pitchers is still essential, but as a preliminary step, I think this draft was quite good.
In any case, there's no doubt that Manager Yoda, who drew the winning lottery ticket for the second year in a row, did an excellent job again this year.

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