The Chunichi Dragons of Nippon Professional Baseball are finalizing a one-year deal with slugger Miguel Sanó, reports Francys Romero. The signing is pending a physical.
Sanó hasn’t played in the regular season since being released by the Angels in July 2024. He has played winter ball in his native Dominican Republic for the past couple years. After posting an .856 OPS in 2024-25, Sanó has hit .315/.376/.663 with nine homers in 24 games this winter. That form earns him his first professional stint in Asia.
A former All-Star with the Twins, Sanó has a couple 30-homer seasons in the big leagues. He owns a .233/.325/.477 line with 164 home runs in just under 3000 career plate appearances. Sanó’s most recent above-average showing came in 2021. Injuries, strikeouts and his lack of defensive value pushed him to the fringe of MLB rosters after that. He played in 48 games with the Twins and Angels between 2022-24.
He might hit 50 bombs there. Good signing
Happy to see he’s continuing his career
Talk about a flash in the pan. Crazy how sudden his rise and fall were.
Like others said- might hit 50 homers in Japan.
But that’s like being a 30-ish HR hitter here, it seems.
NPB has the deadest ball of any league in the world by far. Knowing how seriously he’s taken his conditioning over his career I’d be surprised to see him play enough 1st squad games to hit even 10.
he did not come out of nowhere- he was a top 10 in baseball prospect once upon a time. He had a few big seasons in MLB but could not hit for enough average (and stay healthy) to become more than a power bench bat.
When he was 16, Sano was one of two Dominican ball players featured in a revealing documentary about the MLB system exploiting Latin players called “Ballplayer: Pelotero” Bud Selig hated the film of course.
Mercy!
The pirates were like his second family when he was an amateur teenager and seemed obvious he would sign with the Pirates and when he didn’t it shocked any pirates fan back then. Rene Gayo, Pittsburgh’s Latin America scouting director, was not retained not to much later for accepting shady money under the table in a non related instance, questioned Sano’s age and pissed off Sano and his family and ruined the chance of the Pirates having prime Sano launching homers at PNC Park with prime McCutcheon in the same lineup.
You’re female beat writers thank you for your sacrifice.
I keep coming back to see more comments on this but this is it. It was the first thing that came to my mind. Watch out ladies of Japan!
Pedro Alvarez, Sanó, McCutchen and Marte. They just might have made it to the NLCS in 20 13 sano would have been a better option than Snider, or Byrd
Too bad the NL didn’t have the DH in the Pedro days. He wouldn’t have had to worry about his terrible defense and could have just hit bombs or struck out maybe less.
The AL did exist.
Was supposed to be the Righty David Ortiz. Fond memories of the Bomba squads of the Twins
Honestly I wish he was signed to be the Twins first baseman again he has lost a lot of weight and seems to have better plate discipline now compared to other years in the winter leagues. I could see him mashing his way back to the MLB next year.
That sounds slightly optimistic haha
My favorite player. Great guy. There’s a movie about him call Pelotero.
Some ex major league ball players go to Japan and expect easy success. They find out very quickly, that if they are not productive.They Get sent down to the Japanese minor leagues or released.
We shall see what happens in this signing.