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Kyle Keller Reportedly Drawing Interest From MLB Clubs

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Right-hander Kyle Keller is reportedly drawing interest from six major league teams, per Robert Murray of FanSided. Murray adds that Keller, who pitched in Japan the past two seasons, is also drawing interest from NPB clubs.

Keller, 30, was an 18th-round pick by the Marlins in the 2015 draft and pitched in the majors for parts of three seasons, from 2019-21. He recorded 46 1/3 innings of work across the Marlins, Angels, and Pirates organizations during that time, struggling to a 5.83 ERA with a 7.00 FIP. Control problems were the main culprit of Keller’s struggles, as evidenced by his 15% walk rate in the majors. Entering the 2022 campaign, Keller signed on with NPB’s Hanshin Tigers to become the club’s closer.

The righty impressed in that role over two seasons with the Tigers. After posting a strong 2.72 ERA in 49 2/3 innings of work in Japan during the 2022 season, Keller put together an even more impressive season in 2023, with a sterling 1.71 ERA across 26 1/3 frames. He struck out 23.7% of batters faced on the year and has even managed to rein in his control issues during his time overseas, walking just 8.8% of batters faced over the past two seasons.

Given those strong numbers during his time in Japan, it’s easy to see why MLB clubs would have interest in Keller for the 2024 campaign. While a reliever on the wrong side of thirty with a fairly limited NPB track record and previous struggles at the major league level is unlikely to land a significant multi-year deal in the majors, it’s certainly feasible that Keller could find a team willing to roll the dice on a major league contract for his services. Free agent lefty Matt Moore and Diamondbacks right-hander Scott McGough are among the examples of big leaguers who departed MLB for the NPB before returning stateside in recent years.

Diamondbacks, Tigers Interested In Yoshinobu Yamamoto

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Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto has garnered the attention of many clubs around the league and Jon Heyman of The New York Post adds the Tigers and Diamondbacks to the list.

The incredible popularity of Yamamoto is due to a couple of factors. Primarily, he has utterly dominated hitters in his career in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He has an earned run average of 1.82 over his seven seasons, including a ridiculous 1.21 mark in 2023. He struck out 169 of the 636 batters he faced this year, a rate of 26.6%, while his 28 walks led to a rate of just 4.4%.

In addition to the results, teams will be incredibly interested in the fact that Yamamoto is just 25 years old. Players that come up through the affiliated ranks need to get six years of major league service time before reaching the open market, meaning they usually are close to or beyond their 30th birthday by the time they become free agents. That makes it extremely rare to have an opportunity to sign a player that is both this talented and this young. MLBTR predicted him for a contract of $225MM over nine years.

A projected contract of that size would normally restrict a player’s market to the top spenders but his age might open the door to some surprise bidders. Yamamoto has indeed been connected to plenty of moneyed clubs such as the Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, Giants and others. But even teams that don’t usually come up in these rumors could perhaps be willing to stretch their usual spending habits and take a chance on Yamamoto since the chance of him suddenly succumbing to the aging curve would be far lower than other free agents.

The Diamondbacks clearly need starting pitching, despite having just gone on a run to the Fall Classic. Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly and Brandon Pfaadt give them three arms for next year’s rotation but they clearly have a drop-off after that, as demonstrated by the fact that they deployed a bullpen game in the fourth contest of the World Series, allowing 11 runs that night. Slade Cecconi, Ryne Nelson and Tommy Henry are on the roster as options for the back end but a rotation upgrade would surely help them build off the momentum of this year.

Their track record doesn’t give a lot of optimism of them getting this kind of deal done, however. They gave a mega deal to Zack Greinke going into 2016 but that was under a different front office and seems to be the exception more than the rule. Leaving that deal aside, their largest free agent contract is the $85MM they gave to Madison Bumgarner. They would likely have to more than double that to land Yamamoto. The Greinke deal was for $206.5MM, though, so landing Yamamoto wouldn’t be completely unprecedented. And as mentioned, some teams may be willing to go beyond their comfort zones for an exceptional case like this.

They are currently projected for a payroll of $104MM next year, per Roster Resource. They have gone a bit beyond that in the past, with Cot’s Baseball Contracts listing their franchise high as $132MM. Teams sometimes spend a little more after a strong postseason run, with some extra cash on hand after hosting some lucrative playoff games, perhaps giving the Snakes a bit of money to spend this winter.

The Tigers have struck plenty of big deals in the past but Scott Harris has kept things on the modest side since taking over as president of baseball operations a year ago. Last winter, they kept themselves to one-year deals for Matthew Boyd and Michael Lorenzen.

There is perhaps an argument that the club is ready for more aggression, as they were above .500 after the All-Star break in 2023 and were able to climb into second place in the American League Central. With Miguel Cabrera’s onerous contract off the books, perhaps they could feel it’s time to make a splash. However, that was thinking a couple of years ago when the club tried to surge back into contention by signing Javier Báez and Eduardo Rodriguez, which didn’t work out.

“This game has taught us time and time again,” Harris recently said, per Chris McCosky of The Detroit News, “Sometimes, teams overestimate their proximity to being a team that’s right on the verge of the playoffs, and they spend a lot of money and it doesn’t push them forward. It pushes them back.” He then said that the club is going in the right direction but “can’t do anything in free agency or in trades that sets us back. If we find an opportunity that’s going to push us forward and we’re confident of that, we’re going to do it.”

The club is only projected for a payroll of $79MM next year, per Roster Resource, with a couple of non-tenders likely dropping that even further. They have been way beyond that in past, per Cot’s, so there’s room for them to make a bold strike on Yamamoto financially. But given the comments from Harris, it seems there are things beyond the money that would have to align for something to come together.

As for the Yankees, there were reports this week that suggested that club’s chances of signing Yamamoto took a hit in a strange way. Cashman alluded to the injury history of Giancarlo Stanton in a manner that was apparently viewed as disrespectful. Since Stanton and Yamamoto both have Joel Wolfe as an agent, some worried that the kerfuffle with Stanton would have the domino effect of spilling into their pursuit of Yamamoto. However, Andy Martino of SNY recently reported that the Japanese righty wasn’t even aware of the squabble.

In addition to the sum guaranteed to the player, a signing team will have to send money to the Orix Buffaloes, his NPB club. The MLB team will pay a fee to the Buffaloes in proportion to the size of Yamamoto’s contract. They’ll owe the NPB club 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter. Once he is officially posted, there will be a 45-day window for him to work out a deal.

Agent Joel Wolfe Responds To Brian Cashman’s Comments On Giancarlo Stanton

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Yankees general manager Brian Cashman held a fiery session with the media at last week’s GM Meetings in Arizona, speaking with a level of candor that’s not typical for himself nor for baseball operations leaders at large in today’s game. A fired-up Cashman at times took a combative tone, defending his organization’s processes, his scouts, his baseball operations personnel and his analysts — all while pushing back on the notion that the Yankees are driven primarily by data and analytics at the expense of conventional means of scouting and player evaluation.

Cashman wasn’t shy about acknowledging blame for the state of the Yankees’ 2023 roster. “We lost way too many games last year,” he said (video link via SNY). “…That’s my fault. I’m responsible as the baseball operations GM. If the owner wants to tag me out at any time, he clearly can do that.”

Among the many contributing factors to the Yankees’ playoff miss in 2023 was an unusually weak season from Giancarlo Stanton at the plate. Injuries are nothing new for the towering slugger, but Stanton’s .191/.275/.420 batting line was uncharacteristically feeble. Cashman plainly acknowledged as much during his broad-reaching address with the media.

“We’ve got to get Stanton up and running again,” the GM said (link via Gary Phillips of the New York Daily News). “He’s injury-prone. We all have lived and known that, but he’s never not hit when he’s playing, and this year is the first time that that’s happened. … We try to limit the time he’s down, but I’m not gonna tell you he’s gonna play every game next year because he’s not. He’s going to wind up getting hurt again more likely than not because it seems to be part of his game. But I know that when he’s right and healthy — other than this past year — the guy’s a great hitter and has been for awhile.”

Given Stanton’s frequent trips to the injured list, nothing Cashman said stands out as especially unfair. Certainly, it’s uncommon for any top baseball ops exec to speak so candidly, but with the possible exception of calling injuries “a part of [Stanton’s] game,” it was a fairly measured characterization of the situation. Cashman noted that Stanton himself has been frustrated by his injuries and declining mobility and has worked to get some answers. On multiple occasions, he referenced what a typically productive hitter Stanton has been.

Nonetheless, it seems at least part of Cashman’s comments struck a chord with Stanton or his representatives at Wasserman — likely the characterization that future injuries are an inevitability. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic spoke with agent Joel Wolfe about the surprisingly frank comments from Cashman.

“I read the context of the entire interview,” Wolfe tells Rosenthal. “I think it’s a good reminder for all free agents considering signing in New York, both foreign and domestic, that to play for this team you’ve got to be made of Teflon, both mentally and physically because you can never let your guard down — even in the offseason.”

Wolfe slipping the “both foreign and domestic” qualifier into his quote surely piques the interest of Yankee fans — and not in a good way. Wolfe is the agent for star Nippon Professional Baseball pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who will be posted for MLB clubs in the near future. The Yankees are known to have interest in signing Yamamoto, who will be one of the most sought-after players to ever make the jump from NPB to MLB. The 25-year-old ace has won NPB’s Cy Young equivalent, the Sawamura Award, in each of the past three seasons and just wrapped up a season that saw him log a 1.21 ERA, 26.8% strikeout rate and 4.4% walk rate.

Understandably, Wolfe’s comments have created some angst among an already frustrated Yankee fan base that has been hoping for broad-reaching changes on the heels of a disappointing season. It’s already clear that there won’t be any sweeping changes to the organizational hierarchy, and any instance that comes with the perceived possibility of hindering the chances of augmenting the roster aren’t well received.

That said, it still seems unlikely that the comments regarding Stanton will ultimately present any real impact on the team’s negotiations with Yamamoto. The expectation has been and should continue to be that the right-hander will sign for the best offer. Perhaps if the Yankees’ best offer is identical or only narrowly separated from a competitor, something along the lines of the Stanton/Wolfe comments can tip the scales away from the Yankees, but there are numerous small factors that can sway negotiations when things are that close.

It’s hard to envision a scenario where Yamamoto leaves an extra year or significant per-annum dollars on the table over Cashman’s candid comments regarding a player who’s not even Yamamoto’s own teammate at present. Yankee fans will surely point back to the comments from Cashman and Wolfe’s reply if Yamamoto lands elsewhere — and perhaps that’s the true motivation behind making them, to increase pressure on Cashman — but the Yamamoto bidding was always going to be fiercely competitive. In the grand scheme of determining factors for where Yamamoto lands, this seems like little more than a footnote. Nevertheless, it also offers a glimpse at why so many executives defer to boilerplate speak and generalities in media sessions like the one held by Cashman last week.

Latest On Shota Imanaga’s Posting

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It was already known that left-hander Shota Imanaga would be posted this offseason, and reports out of Japan yesterday indicated that the Yokohama DeNA Baystars have officially agreed to the left-hander’s request to explore the North American market.  “If someone has a dream he wants to realize, and we think he has the ability to achieve it, we want to support that,” DeNA executive Tatsuhiro Hagiwara told the Kyodo News and other outlets.

To be clear, the Baystars have only agreed to post Imanaga, and haven’t yet officially posted the southpaw for MLB teams.  Once Imanaga’s posting window properly opens, he’ll have 45 days to negotiate with Major League clubs.  If no deal is reached within the 45 days, Imanaga will return to the Baystars for the 2024 Nippon Professional Baseball season, and he’d have to wait until next offseason to again vie for a North American contract.

The 30-year-old Imanaga is one of the more intriguing players available this winter, and MLBTR ranked him 10th on our list of the top 50 free agents of the 2023-24 class.  We’re projecting a five-year, $85MM pact for Imanaga, befitting his status as one of Japan’s top pitchers of recent years.  Imanaga is a two-time NPB All-Star, has a 3.18 ERA and 25% strikeout rate over 1002 2/3 career innings with the Baystars, and he won a gold medal with Japan’s championship team at this year’s World Baseball Classic.

Imanaga is subject to the MLB/NPB posting system, so a big league team would have to give the Baystars a posting fee on top of whatever they end up paying Imanaga.  The posting fee is worth at least 20% of the guaranteed value of Imanaga’s contract, with the Baystars receiving more money depending on the total value.  For instance, if Imanaga did sign for that projected $85MM, his new Major League club would owe the Baystars $14.65MM.

Despite this impressive resume, Imanaga is only the second-best NPB starter on the market, behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto.  MLBTR ranks Yamamoto third on our top 50 list and in line for a nine-year, $225MM commitment, based on Yamamoto’s ability and the fact that he is only 25 years old.  Yamamoto is also tied to the posting system via the Orix Buffaloes, and interestingly, Imanaga’s reps at Octagon might be aiming to keep their client out of Yamamoto’s shadow.  According to Alex Speier of the Boston Globe, the Baystars might not officially post Imanaga until after Yamamoto has already signed.

This strategy carries some risk.  For one, Yamamoto’s own posting window has yet to begin, though he is expected to be made available to MLB teams relatively soon.  Even if the Buffaloes posted Yamamoto tomorrow, he would still have until December 26 to land a contract, and it seems possible he might take closer to the 45-day maximum to finalize what will likely be one of the winter’s larger contracts.  For example, since many of the same big-market clubs are pursuing both Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani, Yamamoto’s camp might see if Ohtani could sign first, thus providing more clarity on Yamamoto’s market.

Should this scenario occur, Imanaga might not be posted until sometime in January, creating a bit of a time crunch.  A 45-day window would put Imanaga close to the start of Spring Training, if Imanaga and Octagon also needed time to negotiate with clubs to find an acceptable contract.  This would leave Imanaga with less time to not just find a new team, but to acclimate himself to his new continent, new city, and new coaching staff prior to Spring Training, and it would make sense that Imanaga would want time to properly ramp up for his debut MLB debut.

On the other hand, it isn’t an uncommon tactic for an upper-tier free agent to wait until later into the offseason to sign.  If Yamamoto and some other free agent pitchers and trade candidates are off the board by the time Imanaga is available to be posted, he might have fewer suitors in general, but the remaining suitors might be more desperate (and thus more willing to get into a bidding war) to land one of the few top-tier rotation options still unsigned.

NPB’s Orix Buffaloes Approve Posting Of Yoshinobu Yamamoto

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Shortly after losing Game 7 of the Japan Series to the Hanshin Tigers, the Orix Buffaloes announced this morning that they have approved the posting of ace right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto to MLB. As noted by MLB Network’s Jon Morosi, the next step in the process is the formal declaration of a posting window, which will last 45 days upon being announced. Morosi suggests that the announcement could occur in the coming days. Yamamoto has long been expected to enter MLB free agency via the posting system this offseason, though today’s news marks the first official confirmation from the Buffaloes that Yamamoto will be posted.

Yamamoto, 25, has established himself as the clear best pitcher in Japan in recent years. Since making his NPB debut as an 18-year-old in 2017, Yamamoto has posted a career ERA of just 1.72 with a 26.4% strikeout rate. Incredible as those career numbers are, Yamamoto has been even more impressive over the last three seasons: from 2021-23, Yamamoto has posted an eye-popping 1.42 ERA with a 27.4% strikeout rate against a walk rate of just 5.1% across 557 2/3 innings of work. His most recent performance saw him record 14 strikeouts while allowing one run on nine hits and zero walks in a complete game for the Buffaloes in Game 6 of the Japan Series.

Scouts have widely regarded Yamamoto as a starter with top-of-the-rotation potential in MLB. Prior to the 2023 season, scouts suggested to Joel Sherman of the New York Post that Yamamoto could be considered a “full grade” ahead of right-hander Kodai Senga, who landed with the Mets on a five-year, $75MM pact last offseason in his first foray into stateside ball. Senga’s age-30 rookie season in MLB proved to be an excellent one, as he posted a 2.98 ERA and 3.63 FIP while striking out 202 batters in 166 1/3 innings of work. Needless to say, the idea of an ace nearly six years Senga’s junior widely regarded as the better pitcher of the two being available via free agency this offseason has to be nothing short of tantalizing for MLB clubs.

MLBTR contributor Dai Takegami Podziewski took a look at Yamamoto in the latest installment of his NPB Players To Watch series back in September, shortly after Yamamoto threw the second no-hitter of his career in front of several MLB scouts. Yamamoto’s unusual youth for a free agent and incredible upside figure to make him one of the most coveted free agents of the 2023-24 offseason. In MLBTR’s most recent Free Agent Power Rankings back in August, we had Yamamoto as the third ranked free agent to be on the board, behind only Shohei Ohtani and Cody Bellinger. The market for Yamamoto is expected to be among the most competitive of the offseason, with the Giants, Mets, and Cardinals among the reported suitors in addition to the Phillies, Cubs, Yankees, Red Sox, Rangers, Dodgers, Tigers, and Diamondbacks, all of whom he’s been publicly connected to on some level or other throughout his final season before moving stateside.

Naoyuki Uwasawa To Be Posted For MLB Teams This Winter

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Japanese right-hander Naoyuki Uwasawa is planning a move to North American baseball, as the Nippon Ham-Fighters starter told reporters (including the Kyodo News) at a press conference.  Uwasawa isn’t yet a full agent, so he will be made available to Major League via the posting system.  Uwasawa turns 30 in February, and has a 3.19 ERA over 1118 1/3 career innings with the Fighters, along with a 7.5% walk rate and a modest 19.67% strikeout rate.

Making his NPB debut in 2014, Uwasawa is a three-time All-Star (including this season) and has developed into a reliable starter in terms of both results and durability, apart from a freak injury that shortened his 2019 season.  Uwasawa had his left knee fractured by a line drive that year, but has returned in good health, tossing 102 innings during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and then throwing at least 152 innings in each of the last three full NPB seasons.

MLBTR’s Dai Takegami Podziewski has regularly featured Uwasawa in his NPB Players To Watch feature, as Uwasawa has made his intentions clear for some time that he wanted to test himself against North American competition.  There are some concerns over Uwasawa’s ability to transition to the big leagues, as Dai wrote that “Uwasawa doesn’t have an overpowering arm with his average fastball velocity sitting around 90.8 mph. He also does not boast strikeout stuff, while not having the same command that [Kohei] Arihara had when he was coming to MLB (although Arihara himself was wild during his Rangers tenure).”  The mention of Arihara isn’t a promising comp, as Arihara had a 7.57 ERA over 60 2/3 innings with Texas in 2021-22 before returning to Nippon Professional Baseball for the 2023 campaign.

Nonetheless, MLB teams are gauging for themselves how well they think Uwasawa might fare against big league competition.  A Sports Hochi report from September indicated that scouts from the Rangers, Diamondbacks, Reds, Royals, Cubs, and Angels all saw Uwasawa in action, so the righty is drawing a fair amount of interest.  While Uwasawa doesn’t have the high profile of NPB stars like Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga, and others this winter, he does represent an interesting mid-level entry into the pitching market who probably won’t require a particularly large contract.

As a reminder about the MLB/NPB posting system, any players with less than nine full years of experience must first be posted by his Japanese team before negotiating with Major League clubs.  Once posted, Uwasawa has 45 days to talk with any MLB team he wishes, and he would return to the Fighters after those 45 days if no contract agreement is reached.  The Fighters would receive a posting fee if Uwasawa did sign with a Major League team, with the fee being worth at least 20% of the guaranteed value of Uwasawa’s contract.  Should Uwasawa sign for more than $25MM in guaranteed money, the Fighters would receive a higher fee.

Cardinals Reportedly Interested In Yuki Matsui

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The Cardinals are interested in left-hander Yuki Matsui, per a report from Natsuki Une of Yahoo! Japan.

Matsui, 28 next week, is a left-handed reliever who has been pitching in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball for the past 10 years. He’s appeared in 501 games in that time, posting an earned run average of 2.40 while recording 236 saves. Here in 2023, he’s been even more impressive, with a 1.57 ERA in 59 appearances while recording 39 saves. He struck out 32.4% of batters faced this year while walking just 5.9%. In addition to his excellent results, Matsui is notable for his size, listed at just 5’8″ and 167 pounds.

Though his frame may be atypical, it’s hard to argue with the results. It was reported a couple of weeks back that Matsui would explore signing with major league clubs and it seems like he is already garnering interest. Due to debuting at a young age, he is going to be a full free agent this winter and any signing club wouldn’t be required to pay a posting fee to the Rakuten Golden Eagles, the club he has played with for his entire career thus far.

Matsui has been a mainstay of MLBTR’s NPB Players to Watch series this year, with Dai Takegami Podziewski highlighting Matsui’s four-pitch arsenal, featuring a fastball, splitter, slider and curveball. The lefty reportedly had some trouble adapting to the ball in the World Baseball Classic, which is closer to the ball used in MLB. There’s always some uncertainty with foreign players since they are unproven in North America. Matsui’s size and issues with the WBC ball perhaps add to that, but clubs are often intrigued by the possibility of unearthing a hidden gem.

It seems the Cardinals are one such club, based on this report. That isn’t terribly surprising, since pitching was a notable weak spot for the 2023 club. The bullpen as a whole posted an ERA of 4.47 on the year, putting them 23rd in the league. They also traded impending free agents Jordan Hicks and Chris Stratton at the deadline. In terms of left-handers specifically, they have JoJo Romero, John King and Andrew Suárez on the roster. Romero finished the season strong but still has just 67 career games at the major league level. King has posted good results by keeping the ball on the ground but doesn’t get many strikeouts. Suarez had an ERA of 7.16 in the majors this year.

The Cardinals have plenty of work to do this winter, looking to add three starters to their rotation, but adding another lefty to their bullpen would be a sensible upgrade as well. They will reportedly make Matsui a formal offer after the Japan Series, the NPB equivalent of the World Series, which is scheduled for October 28 to November 5. Like the World Series, it’s a best-of-seven, meaning it could end earlier if it doesn’t go the full seven. But given Matsui’s excellent season in Japan, the Cardinals surely won’t be the only club interested. The Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs and Padres have also been scouting him, per the report. Matsui also reportedly has a four-year offer to stay with the Golden Eagles.

Yuki Matsui To Explore Signing With MLB Teams

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Star closer Yuki Matsui looks to be interested in a potential move to Major League Baseball, as a Yahoo Japan report (Japanese language link) indicates that Matsui has exercised his international free agent rights, as well as his rights to freely negotiate with other Nippon Professional Baseball clubs.

Matsui doesn’t turn 28 until later this month, but he has already accumulated 10 seasons with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.  As a result, the left-hander is a full free agent, and can be signed by MLB teams without an additional posting fee to the Eagles.  His age and experience also make him exempt from MLB’s international bonus pool structure.

It isn’t necessarily a sure thing that Matsui is headed to North America, as the Eagles are reportedly set to offer him a four-year contract worth $1.6 billion yen (roughly $10.7MM in USD) to remain in the fold.  However, Matsui has hired WME’s Bryan Minniti as an agent, which could hint that the southpaw is more interested in seeing what Major League teams have to offer.  Minniti has recently moved into the representation arena after a long front office career that included stints as an assistant GM with the Phillies, Diamondbacks, and Nationals.

At least nine Major League clubs have already scouted Matsui, including the Padres, Red Sox, Cubs, and Yankees.  It isn’t surprising that there is significant interest in a pitcher who is hitting the market at such a relatively young age, and who has already amassed such an impressive resume in Nippon Professional Baseball and on the international stage.  Matsui was a member of Japan’s championship team at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, though he only made one appearance during the tournament, throwing a scoreless inning.

Over 501 career games with the Eagles, Matsui has a 2.40 ERA and 236 saves, and the five-time NPB All-Star is the youngest player in league history to reach the 200-save threshold.  He has worked out of the bullpen for almost his entire career, except for his 2014 rookie season and during a brief return to rotation work during the pandemic-affected 2020 NPB season.  Matsui’s usage has also been somewhat impacted by the Eagles’ struggles, as the team has mostly posted mostly losing records during the southpaw’s tenure.  With a 10.9% walk rate over his career in Japan, control has occasionally been an issue for Matsui, though his 31.85% strikeout rate indicates that his ability to miss bats isn’t in question.

Readers of MLBTR’s NPB Players To Watch feature are quite familiar with Matsui’s name, as Dai Takegami Podziewski had frequently highlighted the closer throughout the 2023 season.  Matsui had a dominant 1.57 ERA over 57 1/3 innings for the Eagles this season, and Dai noted that Matsui made the splitter a much heavier part of his pitching arsenal, perhaps as a bit of a showcase for MLB evaluators.

However, Matsui’s small role in the WBC could have been due to reported difficulty he had throwing the WBC ball, which was larger than the standard ball used in NPB play and closer to the type of baseball used in the majors.  More broadly, Matsui has a relatively small frame (5’8″ and 167 pounds), so scouts may have concerns over how he might hold up over the long term, even if he has been pretty durable during his time with the Eagles.

This winter’s market for left-handed relievers has some interesting names, headlined by ace closer Josh Hader.  Matsui immediately becomes an intriguing new name in this group, as at least a candidate for high-leverage innings if perhaps not strictly a saves specialist.

Rintaro Sasaki To Pass On NPB Draft, Play U.S. College Ball

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Japanese high schooler Rintaro Sasaki is planning to attend college and play baseball in the United States rather than take part in the Nippon Professional Baseball draft, according to reports out of Japan.  ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel and Baseball America’s Peter Flaherty both shed some more light on the situation, including just how unusual it is for a highly-touted Japanese prospect to opt for the American college system (and subsequently, eventually being eligible for the MLB draft) rather than staying in NPB.

Sasaki was one of the favorites as the first pick in the upcoming NPB draft, so there’s certainly some risk for the 17-year-old in betting on himself and instead heading to college.  He isn’t eligible for an NIL deal due to his international student status, but McDaniel writes that “industry chatter and a Japanese report have pegged Vanderbilt as an early leader” among what is sure to be quite a few suitors for the first baseman.  McDaniel also adds in a follow-up tweet that Sasaki will likely start playing college ball in 2025, not in the coming season.

At 6’0″ and 250 pounds, Sasaki carries plenty of thunder in his bat, with Flaherty and McDaniel both giving him a 70 grade for power on the 20-80 scouting scale.  “While his power is his premier tool, Sasaki also has a knack for consistently finding the barrel and has a great feel to hit,” Flaherty writes.  “He has plenty of bat speed as well as big time ’buggy whip’ in his hands.  Sasaki has also shown an advanced approach and has walked twice as many times as he has struck out.”

How this potential might translate to the NCAA ranks is yet to be determined, given the differences between Japanese and American high-school competition.  Even with this in mind, McDaniel notes that the “scouting consensus is that Sasaki currently is roughly a third-round draft prospect.”

If Sasaki had been drafted by a NPB team and gone on to a regular career in Japanese ball, he wouldn’t have been a full free agent (and thus allowed to explore interest from MLB clubs) until after he’d completed nine full seasons of pro ball.  It is possible Sasaki could have had a shorter wait than nine years if his team had agreed to post him, though perhaps only a shorter wait of a year or two at most, plus some NPB teams insist on their players fulfilling the entire nine-year minimum.

Since playing in Major League Baseball seems to be Sasaki’s ultimately goal, his decision to bypass the NPB draft system puts him in position to join an MLB organization much earlier.  Of course, actually reaching the majors might still be some years away (if ever) since Sasaki still has to play college ball and then likely get through at least a few minor league seasons before getting consideration for a big league roster.  That said, it is a bold move by a young player who clearly believes in his ability, and who might also start a new trend for Japanese high school prospects willing to forego NPB for a quicker shot at the majors.

Chunichi Dragons Reportedly Release Cuban Right-Hander Yariel Rodriguez

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Per reporter Francys Romero, Cuban right-handed reliever Yariel Rodriguez has been granted his release by the NPB’s Chunichi Dragons. Rodriguez figures to apply for MLB free agency in the near future, which could put him on the radar to sign with a big league club ahead of the 2024 season. The Dragons have not confirmed the report.

Rodriguez, 26, pitched in Cuba from his debut during the 2015-16 season until joining the Dragons in 2020. He was mostly a starter in Cuba, pitching to a 3.30 ERA with a 17.6% strikeout rate in 464 1/3 innings of work across six seasons, and maintained that role early in his NPB tenure. Overall, Rodriguez sports a 3.03 ERA and 25.4% strikeout rate since the start of the 2020 campaign, though he reached a whole new level of success in 2022, when he converted to full-time relief. In 54 2/3 innings of work with the Dragons that season, Rodriguez posted a microscopic 1.15 ERA with a 27.5% strikeout rate that was far and away the best of his career.

Most recently, Rodriguez started for Team Cuba during the 2023 World Baseball Classic. In two appearances for the team, Rodriguez allowed just two runs on five hits and six walks in 7 1/3 innings of work while notching ten strikeouts. Rodriguez did not otherwise play professionally during the 2023 season after leaving the Dragons back in March to work toward signing with a major league club. The Dragons maintained at the time that Rodriguez was still under contract with the club before placing him on the restricted list.

If Rodriguez does indeed get the opportunity to sign in the big leagues this offseason, he’ll be one of the more interesting relief options on the open market thanks to his youth and strong numbers in Japan. This offseason’s free agent relief class is headlined by southpaw Josh Hader, with fellow lefties Matt Moore and Aroldis Chapman also representing some of the best available, while the right-handed market features the likes of Jordan Hicks, David Robertson, and Joe Jimenez.

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