Nippon Professional Baseball has announced this year’s Eiji Sawamura and Golden Glove Award winners.
The Sawamura was unveiled on Oct. 27 during the Japan Series, while the Gold Gloves were released earlier this week. The league will round out its honors on Nov.26, when the MVP and Rookie of the Year are revealed and all awards are officially presented at the annual NPB Awards.
Named after legend Eiji Sawamura, the award is often viewed as Japan’s equivalent to the Cy Young, though its voting process makes it quite different. Only one pitcher across both leagues wins annually, and a small panel of former recipients judges candidates based on traditional criteria such as wins, winning percentage, complete games, innings, earned run average, and strikeouts. In 2024, no winner was declared at all, fueling criticism that the award’s standards are outdated in the modern game.
But that didn’t stop Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters ace Hiromi Itoh from securing the honor in 2025. The 28-year-old went 14-8 with a 2.52 ERA, led NPB with 196 ⅔ innings and 195 strikeouts, posted six complete games, and delivered 22 quality starts in 27 outings. Though he finished just 14th among qualified pitchers in ERA (11th in ERA+), his underlying metrics were outstanding.
His 2.63 FIP ranked in the top five, and his 20.8% strikeout-minus-walk rate was second in NPB, trailing only Hiroya Miyagi. The right-hander has built his reputation on one of the deepest pitch mixes in the world, featuring at least nine different offerings (four-seam fastball, splitter, sweeper, slider, sinker, curveball, cutter, changeup, and even an eephus) along with multiple variations of several of those pitches.
The Hokkaido-native, who owns a career 2.87 ERA and a 22% strikeout rate over five NPB seasons, is a candidate to be posted to Major League Baseball after the 2026 season. It marks his first career Sawamura, and the first time the award had been given since Yoshinobu Yamamoto won it three straight years from 2021 to 2023.
Itoh also captured a Pacific League Gold Glove Award, joining Kenya Wakatsuki (Orix Buffaloes) at catcher, Tyler Nevin (Seibu Lions) at first base, Taisei Makihara (SoftBank Hawks) at second, Itsuki Murabayashi (Rakuten Eagles) at third, Kotaro Kurebayashi (Orix Buffaloes) at shortstop, and an outfield trio of Ukyo Shuto (SoftBank Hawks), Ryosuke Tatsumi (Rakuten Eagles), and Manaya Nishikawa (Seibu Lions).
Itoh, Nevin, Nevin, Makihara, Murabayashi, Kurebayashi, and Nishikawa were all first-time recipients. Notably, Kurebayashi snapped Sosuke Genda’s streak of seven consecutive Gold Gloves at shortstop. Tatsumi has now won the award for five straight seasons. Natsuo Takizawa is widely viewed as one of the biggest snubs, as his defensive metrics were among the league’s best between second and short. He earned the Sports Info Solutions Fielding Bible NPB Defensive Player of the Year Award, but the NPB Gold Glove does not include a utility category.
Over in the Central League, the winners were Shoki Murakami (Hanshin Tigers) at pitcher, Seishiro Sakamoto (Hanshin Tigers) at catcher, Yusuke Ohyama (Hanshin Tigers) at first base, Takumu Nakano (Hanshin Tigers) at second base, Teruaki Sato (Hanshin Tigers) at third base, Yuta Izuguchi (Yomiuri Giants), Yuki Okabayashi (Chunichi Dragons), Koji Chikamoto (Hanshin Tigers), and Shota Morishita (Hanshin Tigers).
Seven of the nine recipients play for the pennant-winning Tigers. Murakami, Sato, Izuguchi, and Morishita are all first-time winners. Okabayashi has now claimed the award in four straight seasons, while Chikamoto has earned it in five straight.
Photo: Hiromi Itoh of Japan throws during the fifth inning of the quarterfinal game between Italy and Japan at the World Baseball Classic (WBC) at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, Thursday, March 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
