Skip to main content
World Baseball Network
Join

Shintaro Fujinami Returns to NPB, Signs with DeNA BayStars

Yuri KarasawaJul 17, 20254 MIN READ
Shintaro Fujinami Returns to NPB, Signs with DeNA BayStars

Right-handed pitcher Shintaro Fujinami has signed with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars in Nippon Professional Baseball, the team announced. The move had been rumored for over a week before becoming official on Wednesday in Japan. 

Fujinami, 31, joins his fifth team in three years after stints with the Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, New York Mets, and Seattle Mariners organizations from 2023-25. Before heading to Major League Baseball, he spent 10 seasons with the Hanshin Tigers, who selected him in the 2012 NPB Draft, where he was regarded as one of the top high school prospects in the nation alongside Shohei Ohtani. 

The 6-foot-6 giant burst onto the scene as one of Japan’s premier strikeout artists, earning All-Star honors every year from 2013-16. His peak came in 2015, when he went 14-7 with a 2.40 ERA, seven complete games, and 221 strikeouts over 199 innings as a 20-year-old. However, he struggled with command issues and the yips in subsequent seasons, unable to find consistent results between 2017 and 2021, though he continued to flash a mid-to-high-90s fastball that kept fans believing in his potential. 

In 2022, Fujinami bounced back with a 3.38 ERA over 66 2/3 innings, including a solid 23.9% strikeout rate, an 89 xFIP-, and the best walk rate of his career at 7.6%, across ten starts. Following that resurgence, the Tigers elected to post him to MLB. He finished his tenure with Hanshin with a 3.41 ERA, 3.60 FIP, and 1,011 strikeouts over 994 1/3 frames, though the bulk of his success came during the early years of his career. 

A Scott Boras client, Fujinami was determined to prove himself as a starter in the big leagues and signed a one-year, $3.25 million deal with the Oakland Athletics on January 13, 2023. Unfortunately, his time in the rotation would be short-lived as his MLB debut was brutal, allowing eight earned runs in just 2 1/3 innings against the Angels. His struggles persisted, and after posting a 14.40 ERA and 7.25 FIP through his first four starts, he was moved to the bullpen. 

The flamethrower fared much better as a reliever, posting a 2.45 ERA and 3.04 FIP over his final 16 appearances with the A’s. That stretch included a memorable scoreless outing as the opener during Oakland’s reverse boycott game at the Coliseum on June 13. He was traded to the Baltimore Orioles on July 19. On August 6, he unleashed a 103 mph fastball in a perfect inning, the fastest pitch ever recorded by a Japanese-born pitcher. He finished his time with the Orioles with a decent 4.85 ERA and 4.13 FIP across 30 games. 

Fujinami didn’t return to a big league mound after that, spending all of 2024 in the Mets’ minor league system and the first few months of 2025 in the Mariners organization before being released on July 17, 2025. He posted a 5.79 ERA over 21 games with Triple-A Tacoma, striking out 25.3% of batters but walking 27.4%, struggling to find the strike zone with any consistency. 

The Osaka native now heads to Yokohama, where he’ll look to bolster the pitching staff for the defending Japan Series champions. The BayStars’ bullpen has been shaky recently, ranking third-worst in NPB in FIP- over the past 30 days. Fujinami will begin on the farm and aim to earn a call-up to the top team, as DeNA hopes to catch lightning in a bottle for another postseason run. 

Photo: Seattle Mariners pitcher Shintaro Fujinami, of Japan, warms up during the eighth inning of a spring training baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Friday, March 7, 2025, in Peoria, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Share this story
Member Discussion
Loading…
World Baseball Network

Bet on baseball, worldwide. Polymarket runs the prediction markets behind WBN’s live odds — MLB, NPB, KBO, CPBL and more.

Join free ↗

18+ where permitted; availability varies by region. Prediction-market prices are for information only — not financial or betting advice. WBN may earn a referral reward when you join or trade on Polymarket through our links.

NewsScoresOddsShop