MLB teams trust Japanese professional baseball stars. Hiromi Ito and Sato Teruaki Both will be listed on the free agent market next offseason, according to ESPN.com’s Jorge Castillo. Ito is a right-handed pitcher for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, and Sato is a slugging third baseman and outfielder for the Hanshin Tigers. Both are members of Japan’s World Baseball Classic (WBC) team that will face Venezuela in the quarterfinals today in Miami.
Ito turns 29 in August, and the right-hander has a 2.87 ERA, 21.73% strikeout rate and 6.17% walk rate in 828 career innings with the Fighters from 2021-25. He is the current winner of the Sawamura Award. This is somewhat similar to the Cy Young Award, but is only awarded to one NPB pitcher (not from the Central and Pacific Leagues) and is not awarded annually if no pitcher is deserving of the honor.
Big league pitching coaches will be interested in exploring Ito’s seven-pitch arsenal, which features a fastball that can reach 96 miles per hour. Castillo wrote that of Itoh’s seven pitches, the main ones are the fastball, splitter, and sweeper.
A fairly modest strikeout rate might be a bit of a red flag for major league teams, plus Itoh is a relatively small player at just 5’9″. Nonetheless, the American League team’s talent evaluator told Castillo that Itoh “small,” he is “Proven track record of durability. He should continue to strike out MLB batters while allowing very few walks..”
castillo name sony gray With Itoh’s advertisement, Ryan O’Hearn This is Sato’s advertisement. The Hanshin slugger celebrated his 27th birthday yesterday, and heading into the 2025 season, he has hit .277/.345/.579 and hit a career-high 40 home runs over 597 plate appearances. During this tremendous year, he earned Central League MVP honors and earned his fourth All-Star nod in five NPB seasons.
Sato’s resume also includes a Gold Glove at third base, which has been Sato’s primary position over the past three seasons. He played a lot of right field in 2021-22 and also saw some action in the outfield last season, so major league teams could look at Sato as a versatile player who can switch competently between the two positions if they don’t just keep him at third base.
With both Itoh and Sato well short of their nine years of NPB service to reach outright free agency, the Fighters and Tigers will have to agree to post players earlier than expected to allow them to test the big league market. This is perhaps more notable in the case of Sato, as the Tigers have traditionally been reluctant to post players early. While a team’s decision-making process about when (or if) to post a star player to an MLB club can involve a variety of factors, one argument in Sato’s favor is that he has already helped the Tigers achieve team success. The Tigers won the Japan Series in 2023 and advanced to the Series again in 2025.
The rules of the MLB/NPB posting system state that once a player is posted, he must agree to a contract with a major league team within 45 days. If no agreement is reached within that period, the player will return to the Japanese team for next season, but could be posted again in a future offseason. If a player agrees to a contract to advance to North America, his former NPB club will receive a posting fee based on the size of the contract. NPB teams’ fees are 20% of the first $25 million of a player’s guaranteed major league contract, 17.5% of the next $25 million, and 15% of any amount over $50 million.
The posting system may change when a new collective bargaining agreement is negotiated next offseason. Any changes to the system would obviously require input from the NPB, and given all the other major labor issues expected to dominate conversations between major league owners and the players’ union, the posting system would be an issue that has been put on the back burner at best.
That means the league will lock players out when the CBA expires on December 1, effectively guaranteeing that their deals will be frozen. Since most NPB players won’t be officially posted until at least the second half of November, Itoh and Sato will almost certainly be hit with a 45-day break, leaving them in a situation where it’s unknown how long the work stoppage will last. Either one might prefer to stay in NPB through the 2027 season to wait out MLB’s labor uncertainty, but it’s important to note that the 2021-22 lockout hasn’t prevented that. suzuki seiya From making the leap to the major level. Suzuki comfortably waited out the 99-day lockout and signed a five-year, $85 million contract with the Cubs.
The markets producing high-profile NPB talent this year may also influence Itoh and Sato’s decisions. Kazuma Okamoto The Blue Jays signed a four-year, $60 million contract that was basically in line with expectations, but new Astros right-hander Tatsuya Imai (three years, $54 million, includes two opt-out clauses) and a new White Sox first baseman. Murakami Munetaka (2 years, $34 million) had to settle for a smaller contract than expected. Obviously, players are always trying to post big numbers and fix the flaws in their games, but there could be additional pressure on Itoh and Sato to showcase themselves during the 2026 season if they hope to land expensive MLB contracts next winter.
