season career in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), he was noted for making consistent contact and getting on base a lot. He had a .402 career on-base percentage in Japan and has yet to match that in MLB, but his .366 OPB in 2024 was his best sinc...
The second Japanese player inMLBwas Hideo Nomo, who started a trend with his immediate success. But MLB teams must often pay exorbitant fees to Japanese teams just for the right to negotiate with players. This keeps the stream of Japanese players at a relative trickle compared to Caribbean cou...
Log inCould Sasaki be the next great Japanese player? Share Could Sasaki be the next great Japanese player? Ichiro, Nomo among luminaries who paved the way January 18th, 2025 Manny Randhawa@MannyOnMLB Share Japan was a land of mystery to American baseball fans for many years, but it's...
When Murakami was supposed to be reporting to the Giants for Spring Training at the end of January, he instead had signed a new contract with the Hawks. MLB Commissioner Ford Frick felt they had forced his hand. "If in the face of documentary evidence there still is insistence on the part...
the league by storm and showcasing an entirely new way to play the game. While there may not be many players of Japanese descent in the MLB right now, there are still an incredible amount of phenomenal players, which raises the question, who is the best Japanese baseball player in 2024?
Several Japanese players such as Ichiro Suzuki have excelled in the major leagues, while others such as Hideki Irabu have struggled. Particular attention is paid to Hideki Matsui, who In November, 2009 became the first Japanese player to be recognized as the Most Valuable Player in MLB's ...
Top Japanese players traditionally have signed first with Nippon Professional Baseball clubs and established their professional credentials before moving to MLB as free agents or through the MLB-NPB posting process. Morii, a shortstop and right-handed pitcher, joined the A’s directly from high school...
This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in ...
Masanori Murakami was the first Japanese MLB player by a wide margin -- by 30 years! The story is that Murakami's NPB team, the Nenkai Hawks, sent he and two other players over the San Francisco Giants to gain minor league baseball experience in America as "exchange students" (The ...
The deadline to post a player is Dec. 5, and MLB teams then have 30 days to negotiate a contract. Under rules agreed to between MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball, the Carp would receive compensation equaling 20 percent of the first $25 million in guaranteed contract value, plus 17.5 pe...