The Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball are weighing whether to make their ace, Hiroto Saiki, available to MLB teams via the posting system, according to a Japanese-language report from Yahoo! Japan. The report notes that the 26-year-old Saiki (27 in November) has previously expressed a desire to pitch in MLB by his late 20s. The Tigers have not made any announcements, and it is not guaranteed that a posting — even if one does eventually occur — would happen this offseason.
NPB players do not qualify for international free agency until they’ve reached nine years of service time. (They can reach domestic free agency and sign with a different NPB team after eight years.) In order to make the move to MLB before reaching the nine-year service mark, players require their NPB team to make them available through the posting system. That ensures the NPB club financial compensation tied to the player’s MLB contract. The Japanese team needs to weigh that against the roster hit that comes with losing the player.
Saiki has pitched in parts of seven NPB seasons but wasn’t fully established at the top level until 2023. He’s reportedly still four years away from international free agent eligibility. The Tigers could wait another offseason or two to post him. Different NPB teams have varying levels of willingness to honor players’ posting interest. Some teams more highly value the reputational boost that could come with that.
There’s also a financial benefit to posting a star player while he’s in his mid-late 20s. They’re likelier to command a long-term deal with a larger guarantee that raises the proportional fee that the MLB signing team owes to the NPB club. The posting fee is calculated as 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM, and 15% of spending above $50MM. Saiki is old enough (older than 24) and has enough professional experience that his contract would not be capped by MLB’s amateur bonus pool restrictions the way that Roki Sasaki’s was last winter.
Saiki, a 6’2″ right-hander, is coming off his third consecutive season with a sub-2.00 earned run average in Japan’s extremely pitcher-friendly league. He tallied 157 innings of 1.55 ERA ball across 24 starts. That run prevention isn’t matched by huge swing-and-miss stuff. Saiki’s 19.2% strikeout rate is an almost exact match for the Central League average and a few points below the typical MLB mark. Former big league depth pitchers Jon Duplantier (1.39 ERA, 32.4% strikeout rate) and Anthony Kay (1.76 ERA, 21.5% strikeout rate) have posted similar or stronger rate metrics to those that Saiki has turned in this season.
Still, that doesn’t mean Saiki wouldn’t draw plenty of attention from MLB evaluators if he were available within the next year or two. He faced the Dodgers in an exhibition start at the Tokyo Dome in mid-March. Saiki fired five scoreless innings of one-hit ball while recording seven punchouts (including fanning Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernández and Freddie Freeman). His fastball sat in the low-to-mid 90s and he showed a swing-and-miss splitter that landed around 85 mph. Saiki’s mid-70s curveball was a clear third pitch. After the game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts opined that the righty showed “major league stuff” (via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic).
Regardless of Hanshin’s decision on Saiki, there’ll be a few intriguing NPB players who make the jump this offseason. Slugging corner infielder Munetaka Murakami and back-end starter Kona Takahashi will be posted. It’s expected that infielder Kazuma Okamoto and right-hander Tatsuya Imai could also be available. NPB teams generally don’t make postings official until early December, so it’s possible there’ll be a few other candidates who emerge over the next couple months.
Giants, Friers, Dodgers, Angels…. Did I miss any?
Imai seems more interesting to me.
Another player for the Japan Dodgers.
Not every Japanese player goes to the Dodgers.
Japanipulation.
Well, the Mets could take a stab at it, but they’d be a longshot – we know the Japanese players prefer the west coast and the sorter flight home.
@geofft, your confirmation bias is showing.
Dodgers, Dodgers, Dodgers and…yep, Dodgers.
Just because he’s Japanese and can pitch doesn’t mean he’s better than what the Dodgers already have.
Sasaki was high ceiling talent that needed development. He was also super cheap and controllable for years. Signing him was a no brainer.
Yamamoto was clearly an ace talent who they had scouted for years.
This guy had a good showing in an exhibition game against the Dodgers. Roberts said he has big league stuff. You know who else has big league stuff? Every pitcher on every MLB team. I’m not saying this guy doesn’t have talent, he clearly does.
Does that mean the Dodgers want to pay posting money for him plus contract? If he’s good enough they will probably give it a shot. If not, he’ll probably be a decent pitcher for another team.
Anthony Kay and Duplantier have big league stuff according to those stats.
Dodgers secret to financial success even over teams like NY is the Japanese market. He’s going to be a Dodger dude unless something goes wrong.
Do you really think they need another Japanese player to keep the Japanese market?
Even if they didn’t sign Yamamoto, they would still have the Japanese market with Ohtani. He’s that popular in Japan.
But they do have Yamamoto, and Sasaki. They don’t need to become the some repository of Japanese players to own that market.
Mets and Cubs
To the Padres
Seattle
Rather than Saiki teams should sign Nendou.
The Mets can use both Saiki and Murakami, they need an Ace and a power hitter , put him at 3b, Baty at 2b and Vientos DH, if Alonso leaves trade Mauricio to Houston for Christian Walker 1b, Houston is trying to reduce payroll
That assumes that Mauricio is something Houston would want and that Vientos is capable of hitting well enough to DH. They both had terrible years that raise questions about their futures as major leaguers.
As a 35 year old next year coming off a 97 OPS+ season owed 2/40m, I can’t imagine the Astros turning that down.
Houston would trade Walker for Mauricio sight unseen. In fact, they would trade Walker for me, sight unseen.
Why? Just no to Christian Walker.
Rather the Mets spend the needed cash for Alonso, or maybe Bellinger.
I’m not saying you’re wrong. Bellinger is intriguing because if Clifford arrives in a year or two, Belly can move to the OF and Nimmo or Soto to DH. If Clifford doesn’t pan out, Belly is still here.
But go into this with you’re eyes open: Walker’s salary won’t come close to getting you Alonso or Bellinger. Both of those want long-term, big-money deals that will be bad in a few more years.
Walker had a solid second half of the season (.799 OPS) and is a short-term, moderate cost commitment who can be moved to DH or platoon or the bench if Ryan Clifford wins a starting job sooner rather than later.
Last but not least, we have no idea what kind of spending restrictions and penalties the new CBA will bring for the ’27 season.
I don’t expect or believe that the Mets will go from what they had this year to a perennial championship caliber team in just one season, no matter how much they spend or on whom.
Nothing about that guy screams ace. And the Mets are already bad enough d they don’t need another bad defender at 3rd.
Just sign with the Dodgers. We all know it’s a foregone conclusion.
We knew that someone was going to make a remark like this, so you win the prize.
Wow know nothing about baseball we see.
Not all Japanese players go to the Dodgers.
Kona Takahashi is a sleeper for me. Could provide solid value as a 4 or 5.
Japanese batters tend to be more contact oriented than Major League batters, so one would expect fewer strikeouts. Put him against home run or strike out mentality, and I suspect his strike out rate to improve.
Excellent point. I mentioned that last night to a friend, about how much easier to watch guys like Yoshida play. You can beat him, but you’ll have to make some quality pitches. It’s painful to watch some athletically-talented Americans swinging at bad pitches when they are ahead in the count.
Stay away from Saiki. Bad headache.
Well done,sir
Japanese players love Cali and Disneyland, but Ichiro needs to use his influence to sign him with the M’s. Move Bryce Miller permanently to bullpen.
Not all Japanese players prefer California over any other place, just like how not all Japanese players choose to sign with the Dodgers.
If GM Getz is serious about increasing payroll to advance this never ending rebuild, he should be all over this guy.
But I assume, this will never happen. It’s the White Sox way of operating their business!