Baseball

Japan Baseball Star Tomoyuki Sugano Announces MLB Bid

Yomiuri Shimbun file photo
Tomoyuki Sugano

Jiji Press

17:09 JST, October 5, 2024

Tokyo (Jiji Press) — Japanese professional baseball pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano said Saturday that he will seek to join a U.S. Major League Baseball team as an international free agent this offseason.

“I have told the team of my intention,” said the 34-year-old right-hander of the Yomiuri Giants, a team in the Central League of the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization, or NPB. “I want to play over there.”

It is his second attempt to join the majors, after he failed to reach a deal with an MLB team in his first bid using the posting system after the end of the 2020 season.

The Japanese baseball star played for Tokai University Sagami Senior High School and Tokai University before joining the Giants as the team’s number one draft pick for 2012. Through last year, he became the Central League’s season wins leader three times, 2017, 2018 and 2020, and won the Eiji Sawamura Award for the NPB’s best starting pitcher twice, in 2017 and 2018.

In the 2024 season, Sugano went 15-3 with a 1.67 ERA, helping the Giants win the Central League pennant for the first time in four years. In his 12-year career in the NPB, he notched 136 wins with 74 losses, scoring a 2.43 ERA. He was ERA leader in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018.