Ever since Roki Sasaki's agent, Joel Wolfe, met with the media at the Winter Meetings, there’s been speculation about which team might be the best fit to land the prized right-hander, who was recently posted by his Japanese team, the Chiba Lotte Marines. As one executive put it when asked

This is an excerpt from the latest edition of the Michael Clair's International Beat Newsletter, bringing global baseball news to your inbox every month. Sign up for future installments HERE and check out the full newsletter HERE.

The news that Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki was officially posted for Major League teams to negotiate with created a seismic shift on the international prospect landscape. It’s being reflected on not one, but two prospect rankings. Now that he is eligible to sign with an MLB team, Sasaki is taking

For most kids in the U.S., baseball is accessible practically from the day they are born. But elsewhere in the world, “America’s Pastime” is not quite so ubiquitous. It can be challenging to build up the sport in regions without inherent knowledge of the game. Sometimes though, all it takes

Hyeseong Kim, one of the top hitters in the KBO, was posted by his team, the Kiwoom Heroes, on Wednesday. Thursday marks the beginning of a 30-day window for the 25-year-old second baseman to sign with an MLB team, with a deadline of 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 3 to

One of Japan’s top sluggers is eyeing a move to Major League Baseball in 2026. According to a report from Yahoo Sports Japan, corner infielder Munetaka Murakami announced that 2025 will be his final season in Nippon Professional Baseball, after which he will look to sign with an MLB team.

TOKYO – “We are writing our own history story,” Chinese Taipei manager Hao-Jiu Tseng said after his team upset the United States earlier this week to keep its Premier12 gold medal hopes alive. When the U.S. then defeated Venezuela on Friday, it guaranteed that Chinese Taipei would get to play

TOKYO -- It was an outcome that no one -- perhaps not even the team's own manager -- would have predicted. In the gold medal contest between Chinese Taipei and the seemingly unstoppable Samurai Japan, who had won 27 consecutive games dating back to 2019, it was Chinese Taipei who

TOKYO -- Before facing the rival USA Baseball team on Thursday night in the super-round of WBSC's Premier12 tournament, the cherubic Shugo Maki gathered his teammates around him near the Samurai Japan dugout. With the hint of a smile and a mischievous glint in his eye, the slugger gave his

TOKYO -- Rich Hill lives in the moment. A veteran of nearly 400 Major League games, with trips to the injured list and stints in independent ball in between, he knows how fortunate he is to be able to put on a jersey and walk out onto the mound with

TOKYO -- It was easy for a young Japanese ace-in-the-making to slip under the radar at the 2023 World Baseball Classic. There was Shohei Ohtani, starting, relieving, and hammering baseballs all over the park. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was a year away from winning his third consecutive Sawamura Award as the best

TOKYO -- Move over, Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout. It’s time for a new chapter in the baseball rivalry between Japan and the United States, 611 days after the unforgettable conclusion to the 2023 World Baseball Classic. The global powerhouses meet Thursday at the Tokyo Dome (7 p.m. local, 5

Rich Hill, the ageless wonder, started the game on the mound. Forty-four years old and coaching his son's Little League team just a few short months ago, Hill was called upon to face rival Mexico in a must-win game if the United States wanted to advance to Tokyo for the

Roki Sasaki burst onto the scene in Japan as a 19-year-old in 2021, posting a 1.84 ERA over 16 starts. He bounded onto the world stage when he joined a star-studded Japanese rotation that included Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. Now it looks like

Sixteen teams are in for the 2026 World Baseball Classic, and four spots remain for the main tournament. On Tuesday, the eight participating teams that will meet early next year in one of two Qualifiers were announced.

• 2026 World Baseball Classic pools and dates Four teams will play at

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There are plenty of names for prospect hounds to get excited about on USA Baseball's roster for the Premier12, a tournament which pits the top 12 ranked baseball nations against each other. Four top 100 prospects dot the squad, including No. 22 overall prospect Matt Shaw, Phillies outfield prospect Justin

Roki Sasaki, the ace Japanese right-hander, is poised to join a Major League Baseball organization before the 2025 season. The Chiba Lotte Marines, Sasaki's Nippon Professional Baseball team, announced that they will post the 23-year-old. Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, because he's under 25, Sasaki will qualify as an international

Ace Japanese right-hander Roki Sasaki appears headed to the Majors next season. Sasaki, the consensus top young pitcher in Japan, will be posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball, the team announced. "Since I joined [the Marines], I have continued to listen to my future MLB challenges,

Thought baseball season was over? Did you watch the Dodgers parade through Los Angeles, champagne bubbling along the way and think you had to get through a baseball-free winter? Then, you’re in luck: There’s no such thing as a baseball offseason. Not when there's winter leagues around the globe: LIDOM

This is an excerpt from the latest edition of Michael Clair's International Beat Newsletter, bringing global baseball news to your inbox every month. Sign up for future installments HERE and check out the full newsletter HERE. The Premier12 tournament is here and play begins this weekend! Group A starts in

After Shohei Ohtani left Game 2 of the World Series with a shoulder injury, it wasn't just the Dodgers or Ohtani superfans who were worried about the superstar's health: Those at City Hall in Oshu, the rural Japanese town where Ohtani is originally from, were equally nervous. That's because the

Oshu City, part of the Iwate Prefecture, is a rural inland town in northern Japan. Famed for its Maesawa beef and historic temples and shrines, these days the city may be better known as the hometown of one Shohei Ohtani, baseball's biggest star. Head to its City Hall, and you'll

As the ball took off from Nick Castellanos' bat during the top of the ninth inning of last year's Braves-Phillies NLDS Game 2, arcing toward the warning track in right-center field, the crowd at Truist Park in Atlanta held its breath. A home run would put Philadelphia in the lead.