Main League Baseball and its followers are not any strangers to the continued phenomenon that’s Japanese baseball and the gamers who obtained their begin throughout the globe from the place they might later grow to be family names. Considered one of them, two-way marvel and new Los Angeles Dodger Shohei Ohtani, has even grow to be the highest-paid participant within the historical past of the game.
Ohtani’s settlement with the Dodgers is becoming in additional methods than one — not solely has he discovered a spot on a high-priced, star-studded roster, he’ll even be becoming a member of a franchise that has already performed host to a few of the most gifted Japanese ballplayers in MLB historical past.
However the Dodgers are hardly the one membership with robust ties to Japan and Nippon Skilled Baseball. Here is a take a look at seven groups that boast wealthy histories of Japanese-born stars, sorted by mixed fWAR.
Mariners (11 complete gamers from Japan; 79.3 mixed fWAR)
Key gamers: Ichiro Suzuki, Hisashi Iwakuma, Kazuhiro Sasaki
Ichiro is a person who wants no introduction, however we’ll give him one anyway. He performed 28 seasons {of professional} baseball from 1992-2019, the final 19 of which had been spent in MLB, the place he made 10 consecutive All-Star appearances from 2001-10. He stays one in every of simply two gamers in Main League historical past to win a Rookie of the 12 months and league MVP award in the identical season, holds the all-time single-season hits file (262 in 2004), and ended his prolific profession with 3,089 hits.
Nonetheless, when Ichiro took house his 2001 AL Rookie of the 12 months Award, he was the second consecutive Mariner to take action — the primary was Sasaki, who spent 4 seasons in Seattle’s bullpen, posting a 3.14 ERA with a franchise-record 129 saves. Iwakuma, Shigetoshi Hasegawa and present Blue Jay Yusei Kikuchi every had All-Star campaigns of their very own with the Mariners.
Dodgers (10 gamers; 55.1 fWAR)
Key gamers: Hideo Nomo, Kenta Maeda, Hiroki Kuroda
When Ohtani lastly takes the mound in a Dodgers uniform — which possible will not be till 2025 — he’ll be the most recent in a line of a few of the most profitable Japanese pitchers to ever make the journey to MLB. Nomo, nonetheless essentially the most prolific Japanese-born pitcher in Main League historical past, stays the one pitcher ever to throw a no-hitter at Coors Discipline, which he did in 1996, a yr by which the park set the all-time file for the very best single-season ballpark ERA in Main League historical past (7.06). Maeda, Kuroda, Kazuhisa Ishii and Takashi Saito additionally started profitable MLB careers with the Dodgers.
Ohtani will discover barely much less competitors on the opposite aspect of the ball in his Dodgers profession; as of 2023, Dave Roberts, along with his 302 video games performed, stays the longest-tenured Japanese-born place participant in franchise historical past.
Yankees (7 gamers; 46.8 fWAR)
Key gamers: Masahiro Tanaka, Hideki Matsui, Hiroki Kuroda
Each Tanaka and Matsui spent seven seasons with the Yankees, being named to 2 All-Star groups every. Tanaka, who returned to NPB following the abbreviated 2020 season, logged over 1,000 innings within the Majors, all in New York, posting a 3.74 ERA with a profession 114 ERA+. Matsui, for his half, hit .292 with a mixed 123 OPS+ as a Yankee and was the 2009 World Sequence MVP. Kuroda, maybe higher recognized for his profession with the Dodgers, turned in three glowing seasons in pinstripes from 2012-14.
There may be yet another notably notable Japanese participant in Yankees franchise historical past, although; when the Mariners made the stunning determination to commerce Ichiro in the course of the 2012 season, it was the Yankees who acquired him, and with whom he collected his 4,000th skilled hit between NPB and MLB.
Angels (5 gamers; 35.8 fWAR)
Key gamers: Shohei Ohtani, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, Hideki Matsui
5 Japanese-born ballplayers have suited up for the Angels of their historical past. Of these 5, 4 have been price a collective 4.0 WAR — the fifth is Ohtani. And though his Angels profession is over after six seasons, that was loads of time for him to construct a outstanding legacy there. In Anaheim, Ohtani was named the 2018 AL Rookie of the 12 months, made three All-Star groups, received two MVP awards, and re-established the idea of the two-way participant in MLB, incomes himself a record-setting 10-year, $700 million payout forward of the 2024 season.
Earlier than Ohtani, Hasegawa was the Angels’ longest-tenured Japanese-born pitcher, posting a profession 3.85 ERA over 5 seasons in Anaheim; Hisanori Takahashi additionally had a pair of stable seasons out of the Angels’ bullpen in 2011-12. Matsui, who hit .274 with 21 house runs for the Angels in 2010, was the primary (and, till Ohtani, solely) Japanese-born place participant in franchise historical past.
Pink Sox (10 gamers; 26.1 fWAR)
Key gamers: Daisuke Matsuzaka, Koji Uehara, Junichi Tazawa
Matsuzaka, already a six-time NPB All-Star at age 26 (he’d make his seventh All-Star staff in 2018, lengthy after the conclusion of his MLB profession), was an infinite get for the Pink Sox once they signed him in December 2006. In his first Main League season, he completed fourth within the 2007 AL Rookie of the 12 months race and received his first (and solely) World Sequence ring.
Though Matsuzaka grabbed essentially the most headlines, he is not alone by any stretch of the creativeness. Uehara had top-of-the-line seasons by a reliever in MLB historical past in 2013, pitching to a microscopic 1.09 ERA with 101 strikeouts in 74 1/3 innings, a efficiency that earned him Cy Younger and MVP Award votes and the possibility to shut out the 2013 World Sequence. Tazawa, too, had a couple of glowing seasons out of the Pink Sox bullpen. Hideo Nomo, though higher often known as a Dodger, threw his second no-hitter in his first Pink Sox look on April 4, 2001. Dave Roberts, who was born in Japan to a Japanese mom and American father earlier than later relocating to the USA, performed simply 45 video games in Boston however had what might have been a very powerful stolen base within the staff’s historical past in Sport 4 of the 2004 ALCS.
Rangers (8 complete gamers; 20.3 fWAR)
Key gamers: Yu Darvish, Akinori Otsuka, Koji Uehara
The Rangers get a point out for being the membership that helped to introduce Darvish, who’d already had an unimaginable profession within the Japan Pacific League, to MLB. In components of 5 seasons spent in Texas, Darvish went 52-39 with a 3.42 ERA and a 11.0 Okay/9 charge.
Mets (14 gamers; 10.2 fWAR)
Key gamers: Kodai Senga, Masato Yoshii, Hisanori Takahashi
Extra Japanese-born gamers have frolicked with the Mets than with every other MLB franchise — the Mariners, with their 11 Japanese alums, are second — however essentially the most profitable so far has been No. 14. Senga completed second in NL Rookie of the 12 months voting and seventh within the NL Cy Younger race in 2023, the primary yr of a five-year, $75 million deal.