Kentaro Takasaki

Kentaro Takasaki, a pitcher with the Yokohama DeNA Baystars, also announced his retirement at the end of the season.  Takasaki signed with the Baystars in the "preferred entry frame" of the fall 2007 college/industrial league draft - I'm not positive but I think this was a way for a team to come to an agreement with a player before the actual draft.  It looks like because they signed him they didn't get to pick until the third round of the draft.  Which would be a big disadvantage except that it looks like all the teams except the Eagles did the same thing. 

Anyway Takasaki (who had been playing for Nissan Motors in the industrial leagues when he signed with the Baystars) spent most of 2007 with the Baystars' farm team where he went 10-5 to lead the Eastern League in wins.  He got into a handful of games with the ichi-gun team that year and the next before becoming a workhorse out of the bullpen in 2009, getting into 56 games in middle relief.  He spent most of 2010 with the ni-gun team again but moved into the Baystars' starting rotation in 2011.  He was the team's Opening Day starter in 2012 and was scheduled to be again in 2013 but an injury forced the Baystars to give the start to Shugo Fujii instead.  His playing time with the top team started to diminish after that due to both injuries and ineffectiveness.  He spent all of 2016 with the farm team and only made it into one game this past year.

His BBM rookie cards are #85 from the Rookie Edition set and #429 from the 1st Version set.  His first Calbee card was #073 from the 2012 set.

2007 BBM Rookie Edition #85

2007 BBM 1st Version #429

2012 Calbee #OP-12

2013 BBM Genesis Jersey Card

2014 Front Runner Baystars Rookies & Young Stars #20

2017 BBM Baystars #DB12