According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, Japanese star Tomoyuki Sugano will sign with a Major League Baseball team as an international free agent.
Sugano, 34, has spent his entire career with the Yomiuri Giants of Nippon Professional Baseball. The Giants selected Sugano in the 2012 NPB draft. Other stars from that draft, Shohei Ohtani, Shintaro Fujinami, and Seiya Suzuki, have already reached MLB.
Sugano was posted by the Giants in 2020 but did not sign with an MLB team. Now, he is expected to sign as an international free agent. The free agent starting pitching class already includes Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell, and Jack Flaherty. Sugano is a two-time Sawamura Award winner, the NPB equivalent to the Cy Young Award. He is also a two-time Central League MVP and four-time ERA champion.
Sugano posted a 1.78 ERA in 24 games for the Giants this season. He had 111 strikeouts in 156 2/3 innings of work.
Sugano will look to follow up Shōta Imanaga as the next Japanese star in the MLB. Imanaga had a phenomenal rookie season in MLB after signing with the Chicago Cubs. Since Sugano has spent more than nine seasons in NPB, he will not need to be posted.
According to Passan, Sugano has featured six different pitches this season: a four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball, slider, cutter, splitter, and curveball.
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Photo Credit: Tomoyuki Sugano #11 of team Japan looks on in the rain during the fourth inning against team United States. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
