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Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters Sign Renato Nunez

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The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters have signed free agent infielder Renato Nunez, according to multiple reports out of Japan (including Yahoo Japan).  Nunez’s one-year contract will pay him 180 million yen plus incentives, which works out to roughly $1.6MM in U.S. dollars.

Nunez heads to Nippon Professional Baseball after six years in the majors, highlighted by a 31-homer season with the Orioles in 2019.  Nunez has shown some power but not much in the way of average or OBP, and below-average corner infield glovework.  As a result, the Orioles non-tendered him last winter, and Nunez could find only a minor league deal with the Tigers.

There wasn’t much playing time to be found in Detroit, as Nunez received only 55 MLB plate appearances last season and hit .189/.218/.472.  After being released by the Tigers in August, Nunez caught on with the Brewers on another minor league deal but didn’t see any action in the big leagues.  While Nunez didn’t hit much for the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate, he did put up some big numbers at Triple-A Toledo, hitting .291/.383/.585 with 20 homers over 311 PA for the Tigers’ top farm team.

Nunez had the ability to elect free agency after the season, and he took that option to return to the open market and subsequently land a deal with the Fighters.  Nunez still doesn’t turn 28 years old until April, and he’d be far from the first hitter to rediscover their stroke after a stint in Japan.  If Nunez can translate his power into more consistent production at the plate, he could carve out a nice niche for himself with the Fighters, or perhaps return to MLB down the road.

Hiroshima Carp To Post Outfielder Seiya Suzuki For MLB Teams

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The Hiroshima Carp of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball will post 27-year-old outfielder Seiya Suzuki for Major League clubs this winter, reports MLB.com’s Jon Morosi. Yahoo Japan reported two weeks ago that Suzuki was likely to be posted for big league clubs.

Suzuki’s posting will serve as a major storyline this offseason. The slugging right fielder is considered to be among the very best players in NPB at the moment and is putting the finishing touches on a monster season that has seen him slash .319/.436/.644 with 38 home runs, 26 doubles and nine steals (in 13 tries). That’s hardly a one-year fluke, either; dating back to 2018, the right-handed-hitting Suzuki has put together a combined .319/.435/.592 batting line with 121 home runs, 115 doubles, four triples and 44 stolen bases (albeit in 72 attempts) through 2167 plate appearances. Unlike many sluggers, Suzuki achieves this production without selling out for the power. Since 2018, he’s fanned in only 16.4 percent of his plate appearances — compared to a nearly identical 16 percent walk rate.

MLBTR has received a broad range of opinions when checking in with teams who’ve seen Suzuki. That’s in part due to the inherent volatility associated with signing star players from foreign professional leagues, whether it be NPB, the Korea Baseball Organization or the Cuban National Series. It’s also perhaps a reflection of the fact that scouts haven’t had the type of in-person access to Suzuki in recent years that they would have had prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The most bullish opinions we’ve gotten peg Suzuki as an everyday Major League right fielder — a solid defensive player with a strong arm and enough power to hit in the middle of a big league lineup. In an August profile of Suzuki, Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times cited a scout who called him the “best player in Japan the past few years,” and I’ve heard that sentiment echoed myself in doing background work on Suzuki. Baseball America’s Matt Eddy puts a 70-grade on Suzuki’s raw power (on the 20-80 scale), and at least one evaluator I spoke to thought he could produce 25-plus home runs with a solid batting average and strong on-base percentage. Suzuki is a four-time NPB Gold Glove winner in right field, and the expectation is that he can play average or better defense in the big leagues, even if he’s not a Gold Glover in MLB.

There’s obviously a fair bit of risk when committing significant dollars to any international star, and skeptics could point to the recent struggles from Yoshi Tsutsugo and Shogo Akiyama in their own transitions to Major League Baseball. However, Tsutsugo was seen largely as a pure power bat with minimal defensive value and preexisting strikeout issues in Japan. Sports Info Solution’s Ted Baarda took a look just today at why Suzuki is considered a much better bet to succeed in the Majors than Tsutsugo was. Akiyama, meanwhile, was five years older than Suzuki is now when he jumped to the Majors, and he didn’t stack up in the power department. Suzuki is younger and more well-rounded than both Tsutsugo and Akiyama, and we expect interest on the free-agent market to reflect that.

Once Suzuki is formally posted, Major League clubs will have 30 days to negotiate with his representatives. As a reminder, the current iteration of the NPB-MLB posting system did away with the former blind-bidding system and the $20MM-max posting fee system. Rather, the current system determines the posting/release fee owed to the Carp based on the size of contract signed by a player.

Any big league team that signs Suzuki would owe the Carp a fee equal to 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter. That fee comes in addition to the contract itself, and any subsequent guaranteed money (e.g. salary unlocked through performance incentives or club options) also falls under this purview. If Suzuki does not agree to terms with a Major League club, he’d return to the Carp for the 2022 season. He could be posted a second time next winter and would be able to pursue Major League opportunities as an unrestricted free agent (i.e. outside the confines of the posting system) following the 2023 season.

Nick Martinez Expected To Draw Big League Interest This Winter

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This year’s free agent market features a number of starters who could deepen a Major League team’s rotation. Beyond the abundance of former Cy Young Award winners and All-Stars, however, is a recently dominant but much less heralded name: Nick Martinez. Martinez, who has spent the past four seasons in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, is slated to reach free agency next month and could draw major league interest, notes Jon Heyman of the MLB Network.

Martinez was an 18th-round pick by the Rangers in the 2011 draft who exceeded expectations by posting solid run prevention numbers up and down his minor league career. The starting pitcher’s steady production led to a 2014 Major League promotion that looked a lot like the ensuing three seasons of his Rangers tenure. Throughout his time in Texas, the right-hander followed this trend: average-ish ground-ball, walk and fly-ball rates, not nearly enough strikeouts, and too many home runs. Thanks to the sheer amount of contact Martinez allowed, opponents were able to hit a hearty .277/.343/.476 off him.

After a 2017 season that saw his ERA climb to new heights, Martinez was non-tendered by Texas. Several teams must’ve been dreaming on the chance to tap into Martinez’s upside, however, as the starting pitcher rebuffed multiple Major League offers and signed overseas with the NPB’s Nippon-Ham Fighters for a guaranteed $2.2MM. While his career abroad started promisingly, his next two seasons with the team saw his ERA and walk rates trend in the wrong direction.

This all leads us to the 2021 season where Martinez latched on with the SoftBank Hawks, also of NPB. The veteran’s performance for his third organization was, in a word, incredible. Across 149 innings, he stymied hitters, producing a 1.62 ERA, significantly slashing his home run rate, and striking out nearly a batter per inning. His 2021 performance was further bolstered on the world stage when he twirled 11 equally dominant innings with Team USA’s Olympic team. That success in NPB and international play should put the 31-year-old on some MLB teams’ radars, although Heyman hears that the Hawks are unsurprisingly expected to make an effort to keep him in Fukuoka.

Drew Anderson Signs With Hiroshima Carp After Rangers Release

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10:18PM: Anderson will join the Hiroshima Carp of Nippon Professional Baseball, according to a report from Yahoo Japan (Japanese language link).  Anderson receives a $300K signing bonus and a $700K salary for the 2022 season.

NOVEMBER 3, 5:45PM: The Rangers have officially announced the move, with team executive VP of communications John Blake (Twitter link) adding that Anderson will be signing with a team in Asia.

OCTOBER 30: The Rangers have released right-hander Drew Anderson, according to the transactions page at MLB.com. Signed to a minor league deal in the winter, he had his contract selected at the end of July to provide an extra arm for the team’s staff after they traded Joely Rodriguez, Ian Kennedy and Kyle Gibson at the trade deadline.

The 27-year-old has seen limited MLB action in five straight seasons now. Coming into this year, he had 22 1/3 big league innings over 2017-2020, and then added 22 further innings in 2021. Despite a miniscule strikeout rate of just 9.9%, he still managed to keep his ERA down to 3.27 over those 22 innings this season. In Triple-A this year, he logged 70 2/3 innings with an ERA of 3.06, strikeout rate of 29.9% and walk rate of 10.1%.

In the offseason, there is no longer any injured list and players on the 60-day IL have to take up a roster spot once again. With the release of Anderson, as well as players heading into free agency and those coming off the IL, the Rangers will have 42 players on their 40-man roster, per Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That means the Rangers will surely have to do more roster scrubbing in the coming days.

NPB/KBO Notes: Smoak, Sparkman, Freitas

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Veteran first baseman Justin Smoak, who’d signed with the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball over the winter, has returned to the United States to be with his family, the Japan Times recently reported. The 34-year-old switch-hitter was productive in his limited run for the second-place Giants, slashing .272/.336/.482 with seven homers and three doubles in 34 games, but Giants representative Atsuhiro Otsuka told the Times that Smoak’s “love of family outweighed everything else.” As the Times’ Jason Coskrey writes in a second column, the Giants attempted to find ways to reunite the family in Japan, but current travel restrictions there made that impossible.

Smoak’s wife, Kristin, shared a heartwarming video of him returning home to surprise his daughters (Twitter link), calling it a “terribly tough decision” and noting the “amazing” support and understanding the Giants provided throughout the situation. Kristin Smoak later tweeted that the family has been “blown away by the genuine kindness and understanding we have received” from NPB fans.

A few more notes out of Japan and South Korea…

  • The Orix Buffaloes announced this week that they’ve signed right-hander Glenn Sparkman to a contract for the remainder of the season (Yahoo Japan link). He’ll take the roster spot of righty Brandon Dickson, who recently returned to the U.S. to sign a minor league deal with the Cardinals. Sparkman was on a minor league deal with the Twins earlier this year but was released in mid-May. He’s spent parts of four straight seasons in the Majors (2017-20), including a 2019 campaign in which he racked up 136 1/3 innings for the Royals. Sparkman has just a 5.99 ERA in 180 1/3 MLB frames, but he carries a career 2.88 ERA in 378 2/3 minor league innings — including a 3.51 mark in parts of four Triple-A seasons.
  • The Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization announced that they’ve placed designated hitter/catcher/first baseman David Freitas on waivers (link via Jee-ho Yoo of the Yonhap News Agency). They’re now in the mix for a new bat to add to the lineup. Freitas, 32, was the Heroes’ primary designated hitter but slashed a fairly tepid .259/.297/.374 with two homers and 10 doubles in 148 plate appearances. The former Braves, Mariners and Brewers catcher posted a ridiculous .381/.461/.561 line in 382 Triple-A plate appearances back in 2019 and has a generally strong track record at that level, but he’s yet to produce much in the game’s top leagues in North America or South Korea.

NPB’s Orix Buffaloes Sign Rangel Ravelo

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First baseman/outfielder Rangel Ravelo has signed with the Orix Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball, according to reporters Francys Romero and Yusseff Diaz (Twitter link).  Ravelo had previously been on a minor league contract with the Dodgers, but the two sides worked out a deal for Orix to purchase Ravelo’s rights earlier this week.

As noted by Romero, there was some expectation that Ravelo would receive a promotion to the Dodgers’ big league roster, considering that Ravelo was crushing Triple-A pitching.  The 29-year-old had a .407/.504/.758 slash line and eight homers over 113 plate appearances for the Oklahoma City affiliate, though the Dodgers didn’t turn to Ravelo even after multiple injuries created opening on the MLB roster.

Ravelo will now head to Japan for a new chapter in his 12-year professional career.  A sixth-round pick for the White Sox in the 2010 draft, Ravelo was part of one of the more notable trades in recent Athletics history — Ravelo, Marcus Semien, Chris Bassitt, and Josh Phegley all went to Oakland in December 2014 while Jeff Samardzija and Michael Ynoa were sent to Chicago.  Ravelo didn’t reach the majors until 2019 as a member of the Cardinals, however, and Ravelo hit .189/.250/.351 over 84 PA with St. Louis in 2019-20.  After being non-tendered by the Cards last winter, Ravelo signed on with Los Angeles.

Red Sox Nearing Deal With Hirokazu Sawamura

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FEB. 15: The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (Twitter link) has additional contract details, saying Sawamura will earn $3MM over the course of the two-year pact and the Red Sox also have a “conditional and complex” club option on his services for the 2023 season.  If Sawamura hits every possible bonus, the contract will max out at $7.65MM over the three years.

FEB. 10: The Red Sox “appear on the cusp of” a deal with Sawamura, writes Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. Sankei Sports reports it will be a two-year, $2.4MM deal with additional incentives available, according to Speier.

FEB. 7: The Red Sox are making progress on a deal with reliever Hirokazu Sawamura, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com (Twitter link). If finalized, it’s expected to be a major league contract, per Cotillo. Sawamura is an unrestricted free agent, so the Sox would not owe any compensation to his previous Nippon Professional Baseball team, the Chiba Lotte Marines.

The 32-year-old (33 in April) has pitched to a 2.77 ERA with decent strikeout (22.0%) and walk (7.3%) rates in nine seasons at Japan’s highest level. Sawamura had a difficult start to the 2020 season with the Yomiuri Giants, pitching to a 6.08 ERA while striking out eleven and issuing eight walks in 13.2 innings. After the Giants traded him to the Marines midseason, though, Sawamura turned his fortunes around. Over 21 innings for the Marines down the stretch, the right-hander worked to a 1.71 ERA with a much better 29:10 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Last year’s early struggles were surely a red flag for some big league teams, but Sawamura’s post-trade rebound, his track record, and MLB-caliber arsenal have all seemingly worked in his favor as he’s talked with MLB teams this winter. Sawamura has a fastball that can reach 97 mph, a low-90s splitter that functions as his primary out pitch, and a slider.

Yoshihisa Hirano Signs With NPB’s Orix Buffaloes

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Yoshihisa Hirano is heading back to Nippon Professional Baseball, as the Orix Buffaloes announced that the right-hander has signed a one-year deal.  According to The Mainichi and other news outlets, Hirano will earn approximately $1.4MM, plus the contract also contains incentive bonuses.

Hirano (who turns 37 in March) rose to prominence over 11 seasons with the Buffaloes from 2006-17, posting a 3.10 ERA, 22.09 strikeout percentage, and 5.7 walk percentage over 974 2/3 innings.  After transitioning into relief pitching in 2009, Hirano became one of NPB’s top closers, racking up 156 saves during his previous stint in a Buffaloes uniform.

Hirano came to North America after signing a two-year, $6MM deal with the Diamondbacks in the 2017-18 offseason.  The transition was initially smooth, as Hirano posted a 2.44 ERA over 66 1/3 innings out of Arizona’s bullpen and finished sixth in NL Rookie Of The Year voting in 2018.  Some elbow problems hampered Hirano in 2019, however, and after signing a free agent deal with the Mariners last winter, his arrival to Seattle’s Summer Camp was delayed by a positive COVID-19 diagnosis.

All told, Hirano delivered a 3.69 ERA over 131 2/3 innings in the Show — not bad results for a pitcher who lacked a big fastball, and posted only a middle-of-the pack 23.5K% and 14K-BB%.  Hirano induced a lot of soft contact from hitters and had a 47.3% grounder rate over his MLB career, though home runs became an increasingly larger issue for the righty.

Masahiro Tanaka Signs With NPB’s Rakuten Eagles

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Right-hander Masahiro Tanaka announced this morning that he will not sign with a Major League team this winter and will instead return to Nippon Professional Baseball’s Rakuten Eagles. The Eagles, Tanaka’s initial club in professional ball, formally announced a new deal and offered a warm message: “WELCOME HOME our HERO!” It’s a two-year contract, according to the Kyodo News. Tanaka, meanwhile, offered a heartfelt thank you to his fans in MLB:

To my beloved fans,

I hope  everybody is keeping safe during these challenging times. I wanted to reach out to you because I have made a decision on where I will play this coming season. I have decided to return to Japan and play for the Rakuten Eagles for the 2021 season. I wanted to make sure and touch base with you, and thank you for all the love and support you have given me for the past 7 seasons. I feel extremely fortunate for having the opportunity to take the field as a member of the New York Yankees, and play in front of all you passionate fans. It has been an honor and a privilege! Thank you so much!

Tanaka initially hinted at a return to Japan in an interview earlier this month, and there’s been increasing levels of speculation that he’d do so as the month wore on. When the Yankees re-signed DJ LeMahieu and quickly followed with a deal to sign Corey Kluber for an $11MM guarantee, it immediately became clear that Tanaka wouldn’t be returning to the Bronx; the Kluber deal pushed the Yankees right up against the luxury tax threshold — which ownership is unwilling to cross this winter — and even after dumping most of Adam Ottavino’s salary the Yankees were still less than $10MM from the barrier. There simply wasn’t much of a way for Tanaka to fit into the payroll and for the front office to stick to that apparent luxury tax mandate.

Masahiro Tanaka | Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports

Tanaka’s comment about returning to Japan “for the 2021 season” will certainly lead to some speculation about a future MLB return. It’s certainly possible, despite the reported two-year nature of the contract. Opt-out provisions were put into Tomoyuki Sugano’s four-year deal with the Yomiuri Giants and could certainly be a part of Tanaka’s deal with the Eagles. It’s worth emphasizing, too, that terms of contracts in Japan are deliberately obfuscated and kept close to the vest. The aforementioned Kyodo News report suggests Tanaka will earn roughly $8.6MM per season, although NPB expert Jim Allen noted in looking at the signing that even that reported sum is “subject to speculation” because of the near impossibility of verifying NPB contracts.

Whether Tanaka plays out the remainder of his career in Japan or again eyes a return to the Major Leagues, there’s little denying that his initial seven-year run with the Yankees was a success. Tanaka appeared in 174 games with New York, all but one of them starts, and pitched to a combined 3.74 ERA and 3.62 SIERA while striking out 23.1 percent of his opponents against a tidy 4.8 percent walk rate.

Tanaka sustained a partial tear of his ulnar collateral ligament early in his Yankees tenure and opted for rehab rather than surgery, which proved to be a wise move. While many fans continued to expect Tanaka’s elbow to give out due to that injury, Tanaka not only avoided surgery but never again landed on the injured list due to an elbow issue. He had brief IL stints for a hamstring strain, wrist tendinitis, a concussion and a 10-day stint due to shoulder tightness, but Tanaka was a veritable workhorse for the Yankees. From 2016-19, he averaged 30 games per year and six innings per start.

The 2020 season may have seen Tanaka run into some struggles in the postseason, but prior to that he was a lights-out October performer. From 2015-19, Tanaka posted a 1.76 ERA and held opponents to a .216/.258/.474 batting line in 46 playoff innings. Even after being tagged for 11 runs in eight frames in 2020, his overall postseason ERA sits at a strong 3.33.

Tanaka may not have been the ace that some Yankees fans hoped for when he was initially signed to a seven-year, $155MM contract, but he was a durable workhorse who regularly pitched deep into games, rarely was blown out of a start and put together an impressive postseason record in one of the game’s toughest divisions. He’ll surely receive a hero’s welcome in his return to the Eagles — be it virtually or in person — and MLB clubs will keep close tabs on the right-hander in case he ultimately seeks a return to North American ball.

Matt Dermody To Join Seibu Lions

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Southpaw Matt Dermody will join Japan’s Seibu Lions for the 2021 season, MLBTR’s Steve Adams reports on Twitter. It’s a single-season pact, the financial particulars of which remain unknown.

Dermody had been slated to return to the Cubs after briefly appearing with the organization last season. The Chicago organization granted him his release to pursue what is in all likelihood a better earning opportunity in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball.

It’s a good outcome for Dermody, a thirty-year-old hurler who has accrued only minimal MLB experience to this point (26 1/3 innings over three seasons). He was relegated to indy ball action in 2020 until the Cubs came calling with an offer.

Though he has some experience starting games in the low minors, Dermody has mostly functioned as a reliever as a professional. Over 87 1/3 total Triple-A innings, he carries a 4.12 ERA with 74 strikeouts and 23 walks.

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