What to know about NPB's Tomoyuki Sugano

By David Adler | November 8, 2024

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One of the more intriguing starting pitchers on the free-agent market isn't from the Major Leagues at all.

Tomoyuki Sugano, the longtime ace of the Yomiuri Giants, Japan's most storied baseball franchise, is expected to come to the Major Leagues in 2025 after 12 seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball.

The 35-year-old right-hander isn't as young as recent Japanese stars to jump to MLB like Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but that also means Sugano is an international free agent who's not subject to the contract negotiation rules of the NPB posting system.

Sugano almost came to the Majors once before. He was posted by Yomiuri entering the 2020-21 offseason, but he did not reach a deal with a Major League team before the signing deadline. This winter, due to his international free agency, he won't face that limited window to find a home in the big leagues.

Here's what you need to know about Sugano.

What kind of pitcher is he?

Sugano has exceptional command and poise on the mound. His ability to locate his pitches makes his stuff play up, which will be important for him getting Major League hitters out in his mid-to-late 30s without high-end velocity.

As for his stuff: Sugano has a diverse pitch arsenal. His velocity sits in the lower 90s at this stage of his career, but he throws six different pitch types -- a four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter, slider, curveball and splitter.

Sugano's biggest swing-and-miss pitch is his splitter, the signature offering of many great Japanese aces. He also relies on his slider and cutter, using the slider heavily against left-handed hitters and the cutter against right-handed hitters.

Here's a quick breakdown of Sugano's pitch arsenal, using NPB data for the 2024 season:

And here is a more detailed look, using the handy publicly available NPB Pitch Profiler app:

What are his stats?

Sugano is coming off a huge bounceback season in 2024 after an injury-plagued 2023.

He went 15-3 with a 1.67 ERA and 111 strikeouts in 156 2/3 innings over his 24 starts for the Giants, leading the Central League league in wins and ranking second in ERA.

That was Sugano's fourth career season with an ERA under two, and his seventh season with an ERA under three. His 2024 ERA was his best in a single season since 2017, when he had a career-low 1.59 ERA.

Sugano hasn't posted huge strikeout numbers in several years, but his strikeout-to-walk ratio is still exceptional, reflective of his elite command.

Sugano's 111 K's this year came with just 16 walks, a strikeout-to-walk ratio approaching 7-to-1. He walked just 2.6% of the batters he faced, compared to an 18.6% strikeout rate. That ability to locate his pitches and limit walks will be one of the biggest assets Sugano can bring to an MLB rotation.

In his 12-year NPB career, Sugano is 136-74 with a 2.43 ERA and 1,585 strikeouts in 1,857 innings (7.7 K/9). He has a 4.6 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and a career 21.4% strikeout rate vs. a 4.7% walk rate.

What's his legacy in Japan

Sugano has been one of the best pitchers in Japan over his NPB career, and he has the accolades to show for it.

Sugano has:

The one thing missing from Sugano's resume is an NPB championship -- the Giants came close many times with Sugano leading the rotation, but never won an NPB title. Perhaps Sugano will sign with a World Series contender and earn his championship in the Major Leagues.

Even without a title in Japan, though, Sugano has delivered some great playoff performances over the years.

In 2013, Sugano was named the Central League Climax Series MVP (similar to MLB's League Championship Series MVP). He also outdueled Masahiro Tanaka in Game 6 of the Japan Series that year to force a winner-take-all Game 7 for the NPB championship (although the Giants ultimately lost).

This year, after leading Yomiuri to a first-place finish in the Central League, Sugano was excellent in his one postseason start, pitching seven innings of two-run baseball against the eventual NPB champion Yokohama DeNA BayStars.

But Sugano's best postseason gem was the no-hitter he pitched in the 2018 Climax Series against the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.

Have we seen him against Major Leaguers?

Yes, in the 2017 World Baseball Classic.

Sugano was an ace for Samurai Japan in that WBC, tying with countryman Kodai Senga -- now the Mets' ace -- for the tournament lead in strikeouts. (Sugano didn't pitch in the most recent World Baseball Classic in 2023, when he was dealing with injury.)

In the WBC semifinals at Dodger Stadium, Sugano pitched against Team USA. And he dominated.

Sugano pitched six innings against the U.S. and allowed just one unearned run on three hits. He struck out six in that game -- Nolan Arenado three times and Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich and Adam Jones once each.

Where does he fit in an MLB rotation?

When Sugano was posted before the 2021 season, there was a lot of variation in where evaluators saw him in a big league rotation. Some evaluators considered him a potential frontline starter for a contender, while others thought he was more of a middle-of-the-rotation arm.

By this stage of his career, Sugano might be more of a back-end starter -- but we've seen similar NPB pitchers have success in their transition to the Major Leagues before.

The Athletic's Eno Sarris recently noted that Sugano's best NPB-to-MLB comps, based on his strikeout and walk numbers, are Hiroki Kuroda and Hisashi Iwakuma. Both of those pitchers arrived in MLB in their 30s and went on to have solid Major League careers.

Kuroda, who was 33 when he came to MLB in 2008, pitched seven seasons with the Dodgers and Yankees with a career 3.45 ERA. His ERA was always under four, and he reached 100 strikeouts in six of his seven seasons and 150 K's in four of seven. Kuroda pitched 180 or more innings six times and 200-plus innings three times.

Iwakuma was slightly younger, 31, when he got to the Majors in 2012. He enjoyed a nice career with the Mariners, pitching six seasons with a 3.42 career ERA. Iwakuma was even an All-Star and Cy Young finalist in 2013, when he went 14-6 with a 2.66 ERA and 185 strikeouts. And he threw a no-hitter on Aug. 12, 2015.

If Sugano can have any sort of similar MLB career arc as Kuroda or Iwakuma, that would make him a valuable signing for a lot of teams.

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