Nippon Professional Baseball’s Seibu Lions announced overnight that they will post Kona Takahashi for MLB clubs this offseason. The news isn’t necessarily shocking, as it was reported back in August that the Lions were likely to post Takahashi this winter.
Takahashi, 29 in February, pitched to a solid 3.04 ERA in 24 starts for the Lions this past season. He struck out only 14.3% of his opponents in 148 innings of work, however, and his 2024 season was limited to just 15 starts at the highest level of NPB play when he posted a 3.87 ERA in 81 1/3 innings of work last year and saw his velocity dip below his previous career norms. Takahashi’s numbers in his platform season aren’t too dissimilar from those of southpaw Shinnosuke Ogasawara last season, who posted a 3.12 ERA in 24 starts with a 13.6% strikeout rate in his final NPB season before he landed a two-year, $3.5MM guarantee with the Nationals this past offseason.
Ogasawara spent much of his season at the Triple-A level and struggled when he did pitch in the majors, with a 6.98 ERA in 38 2/3 innings of work. While Ogasawara hasn’t worked out in the majors at this point, that doesn’t necessarily mean Takahashi will follow in his footsteps. After all, Takahashi did enjoy back-to-back dominant seasons with the Lions in 2022 and ’23. Those years, he posted a combined ERA of 2.20 while striking batters out at a higher clip, though even those elevated numbers capped out at 19.2% in 2023.
It’s not unheard of for NPB players to see their strikeout rate tick upward when they reach the majors, which is less contact-oriented than NPB. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, for example, struck out 26.6% of his opponents in his final NPB season and has a career 29.1% strikeout rate in the majors to this point. With that being said, there were just 11 qualified starters in the majors this year who punched out less than 20% of their opponents. Among them, only Michael Wacha and Zack Littell mustered an ERA below 4.00.
That reality casts Takahashi as more of a back-end starter or swing man at the big league level, and while it’s possible there’s an organization that thinks they can help him take a step forward it seems likely he’ll be relegated to a relatively small multi-year deal or perhaps even a non-guaranteed deal. Even with that likely deflated price tag, the process by which he’ll come to the majors is the same as it is for any other NPB pitcher who hasn’t yet reached free agency. Once he’s been officially posted for MLB clubs, which likely won’t happen until later this month or early December, he’ll have 45 days to reach a deal in the majors.
If a deal isn’t reached, he’ll remain in Japan and won’t be eligible to be posted again until next offseason. If Takahashi does work out a deal, the acquiring club will have to pay a posting fee to the Lions depending on the size of Takahashi’s contract. For contracts worth $25MM or less, that translates to a fee worth 20% of the total guarantee. A minor league contract, meanwhile, would see the Lions recoup 25% of the value of Takahashi’s signing bonus and an additional fee if Takahashi were to be added to his new club’s MLB roster.
The Astros are seldom interested in NPB players, but I’d love for them to take a chance here.
Interesting that you mention the Astros, I think they’ll take a hard look here. This guys knows how to pitch. The breaking ball is plus, and the splitter is pretty good. The problem is…the fastball sucks & is flat. If he scraps the 4 seam & learns a cutter & 2 seam…I think you could have something here. Houston is scouting the NPB hard, as they just signed Peter Lambert from there to an MILB deal. He’s a 4 year MLB pitcher with the Rockies, but hasn’t had much success. He’s been a starter, but I could see Houston trying him in the bullpen. The guy you really need to pay attention to is: Kazuma Okamoto. I could really see Houston being a player here. Simply put, he’s Japanese Isaac Paredes. His right handed swing pulls the ball in the air a ton & he’s extremely selective, thus resulting in a lot of walks. Patience is something Houston’s lineup really needs. Okamoto plays 1B & can also play LF particularly at home with the Crawford Boxes. Expect Houston to pursue some NPB players as they look to capitalize on their new partnership with “Daikin”, a Japanese company & only Japanese company having naming rights to a stadium.
He did have a 78% GB rate in 2023. That could play in the majors like Clay Holmes
Would like to have heard his pitch repertoire or current velocity for fastball since article mentioned velocity drop from past. Oh well
Ridiculous money for these posted NBP players. Congrats Dodgers, Yankees or Mets on a 250 million dollar back end starter. What’s another couple hundred million???
250 mill with 200 mill deferred to lower the cbt tax hit again.
Hmm… back‐of‐rotation starter or swingman I guess.
WHIP of 1.23 is respectable; combined with a .278 BABIP suggests he’s allowed a fair number of hits but not to an extreme degree.
Career K% of 17% and K/9 of 5.35 isn’t great, so he’s not relying upon striking guys out.
BB% of 6% and BB9 of 2.50 is pretty respectable and shows some command.
Is the NPB part of the dodgers minor leagues?
Ya, its where they got Will Smith, Clayton Kershaw, Tony Gonsolin, Walker Buehler, Cody Bellinger, and Joc Pederson from.
NPB is the Dodgers AAAAA affiliate.
Buy buy buy
I love pitch to contact guys when they are getting quick outs.
It’s the occasional start where the contact is hard and they get shelled that are the problem, though.
He had a 14.8% K rate AND THEN his velocity went down?
Yeah, he’s gonna get lit up over here.