YOKOHAMA\u2014High school baseball pitching sensation Shoki Oda has scouts in Japan and the United States salivating over his record-breaking fastball launched from his 186-centimeter frame.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The lanky fireballer wants to challenge himself by taking his talent overseas, bypassing the Japanese professional leagues that he once dreamed about.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have decided to take on the challenge on American soil toward my ultimate goal of becoming the best pitcher in the world,\u201d Oda told a news conference at Yokohama High School on Oct. 15.<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old, who is widely regarded as the best pitcher in his class, said enrolling at a U.S. university is among his options.<\/p>\n
Oda said the most important reason for going stateside at this stage is \u201cthe language barrier, which is definitely the biggest hurdle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy immersing myself in real-world English from a young age, I will be able to communicate effectively with my teammates and staff when I make it to the major leagues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The path Oda would choose had drawn close attention because the right-hander is highly appraised by Japanese and U.S. pro scouts.<\/p>\n
He completed individual interviews with Nippon Professional Baseball teams by Oct. 14.<\/p>\n
As a second-year student, he helped Yokohama High School win the annual spring national invitational tournament for the first time in 19 years.<\/p>\n
During the Kanagawa prefectural tournament for the National High School Baseball Championship in July, his fastball clocked 157 kph, including in the finals.<\/p>\n
With his school representing the prefecture at the national high school championship at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in August, he threw a pitch clocked at 156 kph, the fastest in the tournament\u2019s history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The achievements made Oda dream even higher.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was little, I dreamed of NPB and wanted to play there,\u201d he said. \u201cBut after being able to perform on a great stage with Yokohama High School, I began to feel that I want to test myself and succeed on an even higher stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Japanese high school players seeking to directly join a Major League Baseball team can sign as an international amateur free agent.<\/p>\n
Under the system, they are free to negotiate with any of the 30 MLB clubs, but can only sign a minor league contract.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"YOKOHAMA\u2014High school baseball pitching sensation Shoki Oda has scouts in Japan and the United States salivating over his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2302],"tags":[2559,5,2372,169,2353,2352,185],"class_list":["post-829887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-npb","tag-asahi-shimbun","tag-baseball","tag-japan","tag-news","tag-nippon-professional-baseball","tag-npb","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117444736656721019","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829887","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=829887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}