CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #220
CTBC Brothers News: Kazuhisa Makita
Update 2: On May 2, the CTBC Brothers officially announced the signing of Kazuhisa Makita. According to the team, they are currently in the process of getting the paperwork ready. Should everything go smoothly, Makita will arrive in Taiwan around mid-May.
Update 1: On April 30, Yahoo Sports Taiwan columnist Wang Yi-Hsuan revealed on his Instagram that the CTBC Brothers have finalised the signing of Kazuhisa Makita. He also mentioned Kakita is represented by a Taiwanese agency TeamBros.
Original Blog Post From April 19
Are the CTBC Brothers close to signing former NPB All-Star Kazuhisa Makita (牧田和久)?
On April 19, Japanese media, The Daily Sports, reported that Kazuhisa Makita, the 37-year-old Japanese submarine right-hander is about to sign a contract with the CTBC Brothers of the CPBL.
A few hours later, at 11 am Taiwan time, the CTBC Brothers released a brief statement on this possible signing of Kazuhisa Makita.
“If there’s any good news, we will share that with everyone,” said the CTBC Brothers’ representative.
According to Yahoo Sports Taiwan, the CTBC Brothers have reached a preliminary understanding with Kazuhisa Makita, and both parties just need to iron out the minor details.
The news article also mentioned that the team was planning to sign Makita back in January, but they went for a foreign hitter (Francisco Peña) instead.
Note: When writing this blog post, the CTBC Brothers have not commented on this matter.
Kazuhisa Makita: Former NPB, MLB RHP
Kazuhisa Makita is quite a well-known pitcher in the NPB and on the international stage, as he represented Team Japan in various high-tier international tournaments in the past, such as the World Baseball Classic and the Premier12.
He has nine seasons of NPB experience under his belt, and he compiled a career NPB record of 2.81 ERA and 1.17 WHIP over 987.2 innings. He won the NPB Rookie of the Year in 2011 and was selected as the All-Star in 2011, 2013, 2016 and 2017.
From 2018 to 2019, he went to the USA and signed with the San Diego Padres. During those two seasons, he logged a 5.40 ERA across 35 innings of work.
After his stint in the MLB system, he returned to the NPB and joined the Rakuten Eagles. His final NPB season was in 2021, where he recorded a 3.31 EAR and 1.22 WHIP over 16.1 innings.
Further Readings
Foreign players come and goes, therefore we compiled a foreign players tracker to keep track of all the foreign players signing for the 2022 CPBL season.