{"id":441962,"date":"2025-11-20T22:34:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T22:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/441962\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T22:34:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T22:34:15","slug":"toronto-blue-jays-have-their-eyes-on-trio-of-japanese-free-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/441962\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Blue Jays have their eyes on trio of Japanese free agents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Toronto Blue Jays&#8217; recent run to the World Series might just have a shot to make them one of the most coveted free agent destinations this winter.<\/p>\n<p>And much like their latest\u00a0opponent in the postseason, Toronto&#8217;s looking to potentially add a few stars from Japan, with a trio of free agents seeing their names linked to the Blue Jays already.<\/p>\n<p>So far this offseason, Toronto has been linked to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dailyhive.com\/vancouver\/toronto-blue-jays-linked-imai\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">starting pitcher Tatsuya Imai<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/dailyhive.com\/vancouver\/blue-jays-interested-murakami\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">infielder Munetaka Murakami<\/a> and now infielder Kazuma Okamoto.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.yahoo.co.jp\/articles\/5c321324d367462eeba5daac4bdecf3f1051bdec\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yahoo Japan reported that the Jays\u00a0<\/a>were one of at least six MLB teams taking in Okamoto&#8217;s perforfmance at\u00a0the recent\u00a0Samurai Japan Series taking place at the famous Tokyo Dome, pitting top Japanese players against their counterparts from Korea.<\/p>\n<p>This past season with the Yomiuri Giants, Okamoto played in 69 games, batting .327 with a .416 on-base percentage, a .598 slugging percentage, and 15 home runs. He was also a part of the 2023 World Baseball Classic-winning Japanese team.<\/p>\n<p>But Toronto isn&#8217;t exactly the only suitor for his services, with a possible bidding war on the way.<\/p>\n<p>Along with the Jays, teams keeping an eye on Okamoto reportedly include the\u00a0New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, San Diego Padres,\u00a0Los Angeles Angels,\u00a0and Chicago White Sox.<\/p>\n<p>Each of the three players has a 45-day posting window where they&#8217;ll have the chance to talk to MLB teams, with Okamoto being the latest of the three to be officially made available. Given that his posting window opened on Thursday, he&#8217;ll have to sign a contract before Jan. 4 of next year if he&#8217;s set to make the move to the MLB next season.<\/p>\n<p>But even among already established MLB stars, this year&#8217;s offseason for Toronto could be quite the busy one. Toronto&#8217;s seen themselves linked to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blogto.com\/sports_play\/2025\/11\/toronto-blue-jays-favourite-free-agent-star\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kyle Tucker and Cody Bellinger<\/a>, while also attempting to keep homegrown star shorstop Bo Bichette as he entered free agency for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>                Lead photo by <\/p>\n<p>Darren Yamashita\/Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Blue Jays&#8217; recent run to the World Series might just have a shot to make them&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2378],"tags":[5,283,377,2554,284,4,282,70,2553],"class_list":{"0":"post-441962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-blue-jays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-blue","10":"tag-blue-jays","11":"tag-bluejays","12":"tag-jays","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-toronto","15":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","16":"tag-torontobluejays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115584412149482853","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}