{"id":568289,"date":"2026-02-12T14:49:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/568289\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T14:49:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:49:19","slug":"padres-take-flier-on-22-year-old-npb-pitcher-in-overlooked-move-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/568289\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres take flier on 22-year-old NPB pitcher in overlooked move"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/mlb\/san-diego-padres\/news\/padres-take-flier-npb-pitcher-overlooked-move\/f0d6d43fd2c07d764670b599?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=appeared_on\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Padres take flier on 22-year-old NPB pitcher in overlooked move;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Padres take flier on 22-year-old NPB pitcher in overlooked move <\/a> originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=appeared_on\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:The Sporting News;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Preferred Source by clicking here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/mlb\/san-diego-padres\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:San Diego Padres;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">San Diego Padres<\/a> quietly made an addition from Nippon Professional Baseball in January.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/player\/daichi-moriki-831683?stats=career-r-pitching-minors&amp;year=2025\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:According to his MLB.com profile;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">According to his MLB.com profile<\/a>, right-hander Daichi Moriki signed a minor league contract with the NL West club. The 22-year-old was assigned to the Arizona Complex League.<\/p>\n<p>Moriki made his NPB debut with the Hanshin Tigers in 2022 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=moriki000dai\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:has not appeared with the top team;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">has not appeared with the top team<\/a> in the Pacific League since. In 14 games with the Tigers&#8217; farm team in 2025, he posted an ugly 13.81 ERA with 14 strikeouts and 18 walks in 14.1 innings.<\/p>\n<p>San Diego is taking a chance with Moriki<\/p>\n<p>Moriki&#8217;s contract with the Padres is a minor move, in reality. Given his poor numbers on the farm in Japan last year, he&#8217;s unlikely to see time on the mound at the Major League level this upcoming season.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>To start, he will face other rookies and recent draft picks in the Arizona Complex League. There is no indication that his contract includes an invitation to Major League spring training.<\/p>\n<p>This offseason, the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/mlb\/san-diego-padres\/news\/padres-free-agent-update-kazuma-okamoto-frontrunner-rumor\/61916506862da2bece65dfa0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Padres were linked;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"> Padres were linked<\/a> to Japanese third baseman Kazuma Okamoto before he and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/mlb\/toronto-blue-jays\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Toronto Blue Jays;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> agreed to a four-year, $60 million deal.<\/p>\n<p>More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Padres take flier on 22-year-old NPB pitcher in overlooked move originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2302],"tags":[4400,5,74347,3435,3685,20755,2353,2352,8610,137,18,70],"class_list":["post-568289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-npb","tag-arizona-complex-league","tag-baseball","tag-daichi-moriki","tag-hanshin-tigers","tag-kazuma-okamoto","tag-minor-league-contract","tag-nippon-professional-baseball","tag-npb","tag-pacific-league","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116058218054966619","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568289","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=568289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}