Naoki Matsumoto

Naoki Matsumoto, born October 17, 1993, is one of those baseball guys who flies almost completely under the radar — and honestly, that's kind of what draws me to him. A seventh-round catcher out of Sakaide, Kagawa, he has stuck with the Yakult Swallows since 2018. But that's the thing about the workhorse types — they're out there grinding through double-headers and long road trips while the highlight-reel guys grab all the attention. I find myself rooting for players like this, the ones whose value shows up in little ways that only teammates and coaches really notice. Here's hoping he stays healthy and keeps putting in the quiet, unsung work that keeps a roster together.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Naoki Matsumoto is a Japanese professional baseball catcher born on October 17, 1993, in Sakaide, Kagawa Prefecture. He stands 177 cm tall and is a Libra born in the Year of the Rooster. He plays for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, who drafted him in the seventh round in 2017.

Name (English)

Naoki Matsumoto

Name (Japanese)

松本直樹

Reading

まつもと なおき

Born

October 17, 1993 (age 33)

Origin

Kagawa Prefecture, Japan

Height

177cm

Occupation

Baseball player

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Rooster

• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/naoki.matsumoto32/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%BE%E6%9C%AC%E7%9B%B4%E6%A8%B9
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q53764849

Tags

• baseball player

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.