{"id":688874,"date":"2026-05-03T01:59:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T01:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/688874\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T01:59:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T01:59:04","slug":"kazuma-okamoto-is-settling-in-nicely-for-the-blue-jays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/688874\/","title":{"rendered":"Kazuma Okamoto Is Settling In Nicely For The Blue Jays"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kazuma Okamoto<\/a> signed a four-year, $60MM deal with the Blue Jays this offseason after a long tenure as one of Japan\u2019s top sluggers. Compared to Munetaka Murakami<\/a> and Tatsuya Imai<\/a>, whose deals with the White Sox and Astros were well below industry expectations, Okamoto\u2019s contract was roughly in line with MLBTR\u2019s four-year, $64MM prediction. Early into his major league career, the third baseman is proving to be a capable hitter.<\/p>\n

Okamoto was best known for his power during his tenure with the Yomiuri Giants of Nippon Professional Baseball. He hit a total of 247 home runs from 2018-25, including 30 or more in every season from 2018-23. Impressively, Okamoto achieved this while also striking out at rates that would be much better than average by MLB standards. He did not strike out more than 18.8% of the time in every season from 2020-25, and he walked and struck out at even 11.3% rates in 2025.<\/p>\n

Some adjustment was expected as Okamoto transitioned to the Majors. Even in that context, he was generally expected to be a solid hitter with better-than-average contact and power, plus serviceable defense at the hot corner. The early returns have been decent. Through his first 128 plate appearances, Okamoto has batted .228\/.313\/.430 with seven home runs and a 107 wRC+. His 29.7% strikeout rate is higher than the Jays would like, but Okamoto is also walking at a 10.9% clip and outpacing the league-average .320 wOBA by 11 points. Put simply, he could stand to make more contact, but he\u2019s getting on base and doing enough damage on contact to make up for it.<\/p>\n

Okamoto is also quieting concerns about his struggles against high-velocity pitching. As noted by FanGraphs\u2019 Eric Longenhagen<\/a>, Okamoto was inconsistent against fastballs thrown at 94 MPH or higher in Japan. That has not been the case in 2026. Per Statcast, Okamoto is batting .303\/.361\/.636 against four-seamers 94 MPH and above, with a .428 wOBA in those plate appearances. For comparison, the league output against 94 MPH+ four-seamers is .233\/.333\/.398 with a .330 wOBA.<\/p>\n

That Okamoto is adapting so well to high-velocity pitching is great news for Toronto. The 29-year-old was their main offensive addition in a winter that saw Bo Bichette<\/a> leave for the Mets and Kyle Tucker<\/a> spurn the club\u2019s $350MM offer for a short-term pact with the Dodgers. The net result was swapping Bichette for Okamoto, creating some downside risk for what was a Top-5 offense in the Majors in 2025. So far this year, the Jays\u2019 offense is a Bottom-10 unit with a 92 wRC+. That is no fault of Okamoto, as he and Ernie Clement<\/a> (108 wRC+) are the team\u2019s only above-average hitters other than Guerrero. When you also consider that Okamoto has held his own on defense, he looks like a perfectly fine all-around player.<\/p>\n

With Murakami dominating at the plate for the White Sox, Okamoto\u2019s output may feel underwhelming by comparison. That said, he doesn\u2019t need to be an otherworldly hitter to live up to his deal, even with his track record from NPB. By most estimates, Okamoto\u2019s $15MM average annual salary is equivalent to 1.5-2 WAR \u2013 i.e., a decent regular rather than an All-Star. So far, he is hitting for power and providing serviceable defense, as he was expected to. There is room to grow, namely by cutting back on strikeouts and hitting non-four seam fastballs, against which Okamoto is hitting just .069\/.182\/.069. Overall, given the size of his contract and who he is replacing in the lineup, Okamoto has been about as valuable as could be expected.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Bruce Kluckhohn, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kazuma Okamoto signed a four-year, $60MM deal with the Blue Jays this offseason after a long tenure as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2302],"tags":[5,3685,2353,2352],"class_list":["post-688874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-npb","tag-baseball","tag-kazuma-okamoto","tag-nippon-professional-baseball","tag-npb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116508175192907044","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688874","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=688874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}