{"id":538356,"date":"2026-01-26T01:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T01:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/538356\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T01:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T01:45:13","slug":"tomoyuki-sugano-intends-to-stay-in-mlb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/538356\/","title":{"rendered":"Tomoyuki Sugano Intends To Stay In MLB"},"content":{"rendered":"

Free agent Tomoyuki Sugano<\/a> is not planning to return to Nippon Professional Baseball, per a report from Yahoo Japan<\/a> (hat tip here for the translation<\/a>). The report cited a recent television interview from Sugano in which he said he\u2019s \u201cnot considering\u201d coming back to NPB. He has connected with multiple teams and is \u201cwaiting for offers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report doesn\u2019t mention any suitors, and it also doesn\u2019t clearly state that the teams Sugano was referring to were in MLB, but it seems like a safe assumption. With the longtime NPB hurler rebuffing the idea that he\u2019d return to Japan after one year in MLB, he\u2019s presumably working through negotiations with big-league clubs. The recent interview echoes the sentiments Sugano shared<\/a> near the end of last season.<\/p>\n

Sugano signed a one-year, $13MM deal with Baltimore last offseason. He posted a 4.64 ERA across 30 outings. The righty got off to a solid start, putting up a 3.04 ERA through a dozen appearances, before falling off as the season went on. Sugano had an xFIP and a SIERA in the mid-4.00s during that stretch, so regression was coming.<\/p>\n

Never a big strikeout pitcher, Sugano struggled mightily to miss bats stateside. His 15.7% strikeout rate ranked in the 6th percentile. He had the fourth-lowest swinging-strike rate among pitchers who threw at least 150 innings. Given that Sugano had a stellar 5.3% walk rate, plenty of balls were put in play against him. Sugano ceded a hefty 11.8% barrel rate and an above-average fly ball rate. That combo is part of the reason he gave up 33 home runs, the third-most in the league.<\/p>\n

Sugano spent 12 seasons with the Yomiuri Giants before joining the Orioles. He capped off his time in NPB with a strong 2024 that saw him go 15-3 with a pristine 1.67 ERA. Sugano pushed his low walk rate down to a miniscule 2.6% that season. He didn\u2019t receive a ton of fanfare last offseason, but landed a decent commitment from Baltimore.<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old Sugano boasts a six-pitch arsenal. His mix is fairly unique, as his splitter and sweeper lead the way in terms of usage. Sugano\u2019s four-seamer averaged just 92.7 mph, but he also threw a sinker and cutter at least 12% of the time. The full repertoire resulted in an underwhelming 92 Stuff+ last season.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Free agent Tomoyuki Sugano is not planning to return to Nippon Professional Baseball, per a report from Yahoo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,775],"class_list":{"0":"post-538356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-tomoyuki-sugano"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115958875790748667","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538356","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=538356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}