Taiwanese right-hander Jo Hsi Hsu has signed with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. It’s a three-year deal with incentives worth more than $9.6MM USD. Yihsuan Wang of Yahoo Taiwan relayed the club announcement. Hat tip to CPBL Stats for relaying the details in English.
The 25-year-old righty has turned some heads with his results in the CPBL. He has thrown 305 innings for the Wei Chuan Dragons, including 114 innings in 2025 with a 2.05 earned run average. He struck out 28% of batters faced this year while limiting walks to a tiny 3.3% rate.
It was reported last week that the Dragons would make him available via the posting system and that Hsu was considering a jump to Major League Baseball, though a move to NPB seemed more probable.
A scouting report from Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan of FanGraphs suggested that many MLB clubs would likely view Hsu as a reliever. They then wondered if that would lead him to Japan in an attempt to further prove himself as a capable starter against a higher level of competition.
Hsu’s motivations aren’t known but he will indeed head to Japan. He is still quite young, so perhaps a move to North America will become viable down the road if he puts up good numbers for the Hawks.
Photo courtesy of Jasen Vinlove, Imagn Images
A little surprising that his contract is 3 years, I wonder if he has opt-outs? should he perform well after year one?
If I were him I’d hope so or something similar. A successful stint in the NPB will definitely increase his stock.
3 years at the price paid – guaranteed – would allow him to test free agency to come to the US at 28. Always take the money , especially for a young (relatively) unproven talent. So 0 opt-outs but 100% freedom in 3 years
NPB team could also just post him which would likely be the case if US teams were going to pay real $
With all of the trades and signings so far I keep getting my hopes up that more will come
Nope, that’s it, we’re done
North of $9, pretty rich.
Oh interesting Wei Chuan is the same company with the Chinese food products in the grocery stores. Odd not to have a geographic location in the team name
A lot of teams in the NPB, KBO, and CPBL are like this.
All teams are named after products in Asia. It would be like nike yankees or Cumberland farms cubs if it was in mlb
Dumplings and steamed buns at the concessions!
SoftBank is like the Dodgers of NPB. Great team overall. I’d like to see a Dodgers vs. SoftBank match.
I’d like to see Texas A&M play the Patriots after that.
Think we’d get a real good competitive game.
I think Jo Hsi Hsu has a new movie coming out where he’ll be doing battle with the Russians…