Kazuma Okamoto, the captain of the Yomiuri Giants, is going to force his team’s management into a big decision.
Will the Giants allow the biggest star on Japan’s most popular team to be posted for Major League Baseball teams to sign, hoping to reap a big check from the MLB club that signs him, or will they keep him, knowing that he’ll be a free agent following the 2026 season and could sign with an MLB club with the Giants receiving nothing.
A report from the New York Post’s Jon Heyman indicated that Okamoto, along with the Saitama Seibu Lions’ Tatsuya Imai and Munetaka Murakami of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, are all prime targets for posting, and have been drawing significant interest from MLB clubs, including the New York Mets.
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Okamoto, a corner infielder and occasional outfielder, has been spectacular for the Giants, making six All-Star games, winning two Gold Gloves, and leading Nippon Professional Baseball in homers three times. But he’s also 29 and battled an elbow injury that has limited him to 48 games thus far this season, which might give MLB teams pause before writing a big check despite him having the highest batting average of his career (.314) this season. All told, Okamoto has played 11 seasons in NPB, all with the Giants, where he’s hit 273 homers in 1,356 games with a .273/.353/.499 and an .853 OPS.
The knock on Okamoto is his defense, and where he would fit on an MLB field is an open question, and he’s primarily played first base this season with the Giants. The Giants, for years, have often blocked players from going to North America by not posting them, but if Okamoto is going to leave a year from now, they’d be foolish to not get a financial return, even if it means they have to somehow find a replacement for him in the lineup.
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A righty with a slight build, Imai has been a solid starter through his first eight seasons in NPB, but his past two seasons have been exceptional. In 2024, the 5-foot-11, 154-pounder posted a 2.34 ERA across 173 1/3 innings with 187 strikeouts and 70 walks for a Lions team that went 49-90 and finished dead last in the Pacific League, 14 games behind the fifth-place Orix Buffaloes. This year, he’s been even better, throwing 143 2/3 innings in 20 appearances with a 1.50 ERA, a 0.849 WHIP, and 159 strikeouts against just 39 walks.
Now in his age 27 season, Imai is in his prime, and will undoubtedly draw interest from multiple MLB clubs, though it’s unlikely he’d get as big a contract as the 12-year, $325 million deal the Los Angeles Dodgers gave to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who inked his big ticket in his age 25 season.
The big question with Imai, as has been the case with so many pitchers who came to the Major Leagues from NPB, is how his game will translate. He has a fastball that reaches the high 90s, which is a rarity in NPB, though far more common in MLB.
NPB starters generally work as part of a six-man rotation with six games each week, giving them far more rest between starts compared to MLB starters, who generally work in five-man rotation, usually get between outings.
Photo: Kazuma Okamoto flies out in the fourth inning of a spring training baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Tokyo, Japan, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
