Japan Prospect Lab

I write about Japanese baseball in English. NPB, the draft, and the amateur leagues underneath. Every number sourced. Free data on GitHub.

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

@BleacherNation His NPB career ERA is 1.78 over 592 innings, as a closer, setup man and starter.

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

@NYYWorldwide One Yankees tie: Yomiuri, which drafted him on Oct. 22 and holds his rights through March, named Hideki Matsui its manager the next day.

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

@mlbtraderumors He's been steady: an OPS of .804 or better and at least 20 homers in each of the last four seasons.

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

@MLBNetwork If that NPB star is Teruaki Sato, the glove has swung: 6 errors and a Central League Gold Glove at third in 2025, 18 errors there this year.

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

The Central League hit .236 this year, its lowest since 1971.

That's the backdrop for Teruaki Sato's .306 and 39 home runs. Even 2011, the low-offense year NPB switched to a new ball, came in at .242.

#NPB #HanshinTigers

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

400 strikeouts, three Japanese pitchers, one team.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out 182 for the Dodgers this year, Roki Sasaki 123 and Shohei Ohtani 95. Together they threw 393 innings.

#Dodgers #MLB

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

@TigerTerritory_ Itoh would bring durability: at least 146 innings in each of his six NPB seasons, 172 2/3 this year.

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

@LADodgersMuse Add the bat: 30 homers, making it his fourth season with 30 homers and 80 innings pitched.

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

@MLBONFOX What each would bring, by 2026 numbers: a .368 OBP from Suzuki, 174 1/3 innings from Imanaga and 39 homers from Sato.

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

@snyyankees One item on his desk: Yomiuri drafted Shoki Oda in the first round on Oct. 22, the day before naming Matsui, and holds Oda's rights through March. Oda has said he's headed to the U.S.

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

98 mph for Team USA's Connor Salerno. 156 km/h for Taiwan's Liu Jen-yu. 155 for Japan's Haruto Kawamoto.

Walks are the gap. Korea's Han Kyu-min cut his walks and HBP to 3.08 per nine. Kawamoto's rose to 5.68.

Side by side:
https://t.co/Ys6P9pvNZZ
#NPBDraft #MLBDraft

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

Where do NPB draft picks come from?

Of the 127 players taken on Oct. 22, 47 came from Japanese colleges, 39 from high schools, 19 from corporate teams and 15 from independent leagues. Five came from overseas, including Penn State and the KBO's KT Wiz.

#NPBDraft #NPB

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

Hideo Nomo still holds this one, 31 years later.

236 strikeouts for the Dodgers in 1995, the most by a Japanese pitcher in his first MLB season. Yu Darvish came closest with 221 in 2012. Kodai Senga (202) and Daisuke Matsuzaka (201) also passed 200.

#MLB #Dodgers #NPB

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

Hanwha gave Si-Hwan Roh an 11-year deal, a way to MLB and no way to Japan.

He started 2026 at .145 and finished with 29 home runs. He has until Dec. 1 to sign, and his strikeout rate just jumped to 25.7%.

Month by month:
https://t.co/whLX5uLSdl
#KBO #MLB #HanwhaEagles

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

Shoki Oda has added 6 km/h in under two years.

He topped out at 151 as a high school first-year in the fall of 2024 and reached 157 (97.6 mph) this July. At Koshien in August he threw 156, the fastest pitch ever recorded there. He's 18.

#Koshien #NPBDraft #MLB

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

The home run record for a Japanese MLB rookie fell twice this year.

Munetaka Murakami hit 35 for the White Sox, and Kazuma Okamoto hit 33 for the Blue Jays. The old mark was Shohei Ohtani's 22 in 2018.

#MLB #WhiteSox #BlueJays

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

Year one of the KBO's Asian quota: 8 of the 10 quota players at season's end were Japanese.

The most wins went to Taiwan's Wang Yen-cheng, 11 for Hanwha, after 6 years on Rakuten's farm team.

All ten, club by club:
https://t.co/y0FaF0XtY0
#KBO #NPB #HanwhaEagles

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

In 2005, NPB and MLB teams homered at the same rate.

1.03 per game each. By 2024, NPB was down to 0.57, about half of MLB's 1.12. This year it was 0.83 to 1.15. Worth keeping in mind when you read an NPB home run total.

#NPB #MLB

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

2026 was the biggest year yet for Japanese players in MLB.

Japanese hitters hit 129 home runs, 38 more than the record they set in 2025. For the first time, three of them hit 30: Murakami, Okamoto and Ohtani. Japanese pitchers struck out 977, also a record.

#MLB #NPB

[Japan Prospect Lab @JapanProspects]

@StlllWest He'd be 28 on Opening Day, a year younger than Okamoto was at his MLB debut.