Takahiro Norimoto To Stay In NPB, Sign With Yomiuri Giants
Right-hander Takahiro Norimoto has decided to remain in Japan and will sign with the Yomiuri Giants, according to a report from Sports Hochi in Japan. The 35-year-old had been weighing an offer from a major league club but will instead sign a multi-year deal with the Giants.
Norimoto has spent his entire 13-year career with the Rakuten Golden Eagles. After a long run in their rotation, he moved to the bullpen and has ascended to their closer role in recent seasons. The right-hander posted a 3.02 ERA with 16 saves, four holds and only two blown opportunities last year. He’s fanned nearly 24% of opponents in his career, but Norimoto’s strikeout rate dropped to 17.2% in 2025 and his fastball velocity took a dip as well, sitting around 92 mph this past year (down from his days of sitting 94-95 and climbing as high as 97-98 mph).
It’s not clear which MLB club had put forth an offer to Norimoto, nor is it clear whether it was even a guaranteed pact. It’s a moot point now, as Norimoto will pitch at least his age-35 and age-36 seasons out of the Giants’ bullpen in Japan. While it’s feasible that he could still make a late-career move to North American ball, that’s hard to envision unless Norimoto finds a way to miss more bats while working with what appears to be diminishing velocity.
In 1838 career NPB innings, Norimoto has pitched to a 3.12 ERA. He sports a 120-99 record, 48 saves, four holds, a 23.7% strikeout rate and a 6.3% walk rate in Japan’s top league. He led NPB in strikeouts for five consecutive seasons from 2014-18, whiffing 1044 batters in 958 2/3 innings (26.5 K%) during that time.
Takahiro Norimoto Weighing Offer From MLB Team
Free agent relief pitcher Takahiro Norimoto has received an offer from a major league club, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. The 35-year-old righty is weighing a move stateside but not firmly committed to making the jump. He’s also considering offers from clubs in Japan.
Norimoto has played 13 seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball, all with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. A starter for most of that time, he has transitioned into the Eagles’ closer over the past two years. Norimoto has gone 48-53 in save opportunities. He posted a 3.46 earned run average in 2024 and is coming off a 3.02 mark across 56 2/3 frames last season.
Despite his decent numbers at the back of the Eagles’ bullpen, Norimoto isn’t a power arm. He hasn’t recorded a strikeout rate above 20% in any of the past four seasons. Norimoto fanned just 17.2% of batters faced against an 8.4% walk rate last year. FanGraphs writes that he sits around 92 MPH on his fastball and features an above-average splitter as his best secondary pitch. He seemingly projects as a middle reliever or depth arm at the major league level.
It’d be a surprise if Norimoto commands more than a cheap one-year MLB contract. It’s possible he explores major league interest as a leverage play in negotiations for potentially bigger money in Japan. Norimoto has nine-plus seasons of service time in his home country, so he’s an unrestricted free agent who can sign with any club in NPB or a foreign league. An MLB team would not owe the Eagles a posting fee. Feinsand notes that Norimoto is likely to decide whether he’ll make the move to MLB within the next few days.
NPB’s Takahiro Norimoto Mulling Potential Move To MLB
Right-hander Takahiro Norimoto of the Rakuten Eagles in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball is planning to exercise his international free agent rights and gauge interest from both MLB and NPB teams this winter, per a report from Yahoo Japan (hat tip to Yakyu Cosmopolitan). He’s hired the Wasserman agency to represent him in talks with major league teams, per the report. The now-34-year-old righty moved to the bullpen in 2024 after a lengthy and successful run as a starting pitcher. He’s spent the past two seasons as the Eagles’ closer.
Norimoto is older than most players making the transition from NPB to MLB. He’ll turn 35 in December. The right-hander is coming off a nice year with the Eagles, having pitched to a 3.02 ERA with 16 saves, four holds and only two blown saves. His 17.2% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate don’t exactly stand out, though Norimoto has still shown the ability to run his heater up in the 97 mph range since moving to the bullpen last season. He kept nearly 50% of his opponents’ batted balls on the ground this past season as well.
Norimoto hasn’t had issues missing bats in the past. He led NPB in strikeouts for five straight years, from 2014-18, while working out of the Eagles’ rotation. He’s pitched 1838 career innings in NPB and recorded a 3.12 ERA while winning 120 games, saving another 48 and punching out nearly 24% of his opponents (against a 6.3% walk rate).
Due to the fact that Norimoto is at least 25 and has at least six full seasons of professional experience, he’s exempt from Major League Baseball’s international bonus pool structure. The fact that he has more than nine seasons of service in NPB means he is also exempt from the posting system. If he indeed exercises those international free agent rights, he’d be free to sign with any club on a big league or minor league deal — provided MLB teams have sufficient interest in the former Pacific League Rookie of the Year and six-time NPB All-Star.
While we don’t see too many players jump to MLB in their mid-30s, Orioles right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano did just that in 2025. This past year was Sugano’s rookie season in MLB and came in his own age-35 campaign. Sugano, of course, did so as a starter. Former Red Sox righty Hirokazu Sawamura and former D-backs/Mariners righty Yoshihisa Hirano are more recent examples of relievers making relatively successful moves to MLB in their mid-30s; the former signed with Boston ahead of his age-33 season in 2022, while the latter signed with Arizona ahead of the 2018 campaign, his age-34 season.
Big league clubs are always on the lookout for affordable bullpen help, so there could still be interest in Norimoto even if he’s not as coveted at 35 as he might’ve been in his physical peak. As a rotation-mate of former Yankees right-hander Masahiro Tanaka for Tanaka’s first three seasons back in Japan after his run in the Bronx, Norimoto has surely picked the former MLB All-Star’s brain about moving to the majors in the past. It’s not entirely certain he’ll be pitching in North America next year, but he’s an interesting wild card entrant into the offseason bullpen market.