We are going to be tracking the pool of international players coming over to Major League Baseball this offseason just like past offseasons, and now that itโs clear the Cubs are trying to build out a more explicit pipeline from Japan to Chicago, every possibility seems like it merits just a touch more attention. So be it a veteran free agent like Tomoyuki Sugano, or young superstar like Roki Sasaki, I want to mention any player who MIGHT be a PLAUSIBLE fit for the Cubs.
Up next, lefty Shinnosuke Ogasawara, who is reportedly going to ask his NPB team to post him for MLB teams this offseason.
Ogasawara, who just turned 27, appears to be on a run of consistently good, but not quite dominant, seasons in Japan. His ERA is typically in the 3-ish range, which is good, but he appears to be much more of a command/control type, pairing a very low walk rate with a mediocre (or lower) strikeout rate.
Here’s a little video from one of Ogasawara’s starts this year, where you’ll see the big breaking ball and a fastball that appears to be in the 90-91 mph range:
It’s really hard to say from a mere surface review how a guy like Shinnosuke Ogasawara would translate in MLB. It comes down to the individual pitch quality more than anything, but it’s also true that there are some generalities: strikeout rates tend to tick up from NPB to MLB, if the pitcher is good enough, because the style of offensive play is fundamentally different. Walk rates tend to hold relatively steady, or tick up slightly. Home run rates usually climb. Overall results tend to be less strong, as the offensive pool in MLB is stronger than the NPB.
That is all to say, on paper, you don’t see an obvious future MLB star here. Again, folks with a whole lot more scouting knowledge (and pitch-level data) than I have would be able to tell you more, but the most recent success stories on the pitching side have tended to be strikeout-heavy, good-velocity, nasty-stuff starting pitchers in Japan.
I see some similarities in the production in Japan from Ogasawara and Naoyuki Uwasawa, who came over this past offseason after 11 solid years in Japan. Uwasawa, who was 29, could not find a big league deal and ultimately signed a minor league contract with the Rays. He wasn’t going to make the big league team – and was going to opt out of his deal – so he was traded to the Red Sox, who ultimately kept him at Triple-A most of the year. There, he struggled, was converted to relief, and continued to struggle.
None of that is to say that Ogasawara and Uwasawa would perform the same in the States simply because they are comparable-results pitchers coming over from Japan. I point it out only because it was the most recent transition for a command/control/contact-type pitcher coming over from Japan. It is an example of how difficult it can be to do some kind of straight extrapolation from NPB stats to MLB (or even Triple-A) stats.
Ideally, we’d have some scouting material to work off of, but I haven’t found any out there just yet, in terms of a projection in MLB. If Ogasawara is ultimately posted, you can expect those reports to come out.
Shy of that, it’s also hard to say exactly what the Cubs’ interest level would or should be. Maybe there’s something in the stuff they really like, or maybe there’s some tweak they see that could make for a strong transition, or maybe it’s a role change, so on and so forth. And having just turned 27, Ogasawara will have relative youth on his side.
The only thing I can offer at the moment with any level of certainty is that I do not get the sense that Ogasawara is the same caliber of pitcher coming over as we saw recently with guys like Shร ยta Imanaga, Kodai Senga, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
UPDATE: A report out of Japan indicates that Ogasawara’s team will agree to post him for MLB teams this offseason. Once that happens – usually not until November, December, or even January – the lefty will have a 45-day window during which to negotiate with MLB teams and try to come to a agreement. So, you can mentally add him to the pool of free agent starting pitchers, though, as discussed above, it’s difficult to project him as a clear front-half type.