The Athletics announced the signing of right-hander Shintaro Fujinami to a one-year deal on Friday evening. The Japanese hurler reportedly receives a $3.25MM guarantee and can earn up to $1MM more in potential incentives. That deal also come with a 20% posting fee of $650K to be paid out to Fujinami’s former team, the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball, which brings the Athletics’ total expenditure on the deal to $3.9MM. Oakland would also owe a 20% fee to the Tigers on any money Fujinami unlocks via incentives.
Fujinami, a hard-throwing 28-year-old, was posted by the Tigers back on December 1. A high school phenom from the same draft class as Shohei Ohtani, incredibly stepping right from high school ball into the Tigers’ rotation and as a 19-year-old rookie and pitching to a 2.75 ERA in 137 2/3 innings as a starter. For several years, he delivered standout results, pitching to a sub-3.00 ERA through his first four seasons as a professional and making the Central League All-Star team in each of those first four campaigns.
However, as Yakyu Cosmopolitan lays out in a video recap of Fujinami’s career that fans will want to check out (YouTube link, video in English), Fujinami was left on the mound to toss 161 pitches — far and away a career high — during his age-22 season in an outing that began with him yielding five runs in three innings. He’d already begun to display some worrying command issues prior to that outing, and the extent to which that outing might have impacted him can’t be known, but Fujinami began to oscillate between the Tigers’ first team (i.e. their Major League club) and their farm system beginning in 2017. Further struggles from 2017-21 caused his stock to fade substantially.
The 2022 season, though, has brought about something of a renaissance for Fujinami. The hard-throwing righty made 10 starts and six relief appearances with the Tigers’ top team, pitching to a 3.38 ERA in 66 2/3 innings. He fanned 23.6% of his opponents and, most crucially, turned in a career-low 7.6% walk rate. That was not only the best mark of Fujinami’s career but the first time since 2016 he’s posted a walk rate under 10%.
As a 6’6″ righty with an upper-90s heater that has reached triple digits and a slider that’s been a plus pitch in the past, Fujinami offers tantalizing potential. The recent struggles and repeated inability to locate the ball with any real consistency obviously limit his earning power, but big league scouts have had Fujinami on their radar since his high school days. The A’s make for a sensible team to roll the dice on catching lightning in a bottle with Fujinami’s impressive raw arsenal, given their spacious home park and status as a non-contender, which will afford them additional patience if the righty struggles to acclimate to North American ball early on.
With the A’s, Fujinami will step into a starting staff that includes Cole Irvin, Paul Blackburn and a host of fellow unproven options. Oakland signed journeyman right-hander Drew Rucinski to a one-year, $3MM deal on the heels of a terrific run in the Korea Baseball Organization, so it’s likely he and Fujinami will slot in behind Irvin and Blackburn. Candidates for the fifth spot on the staff will include out-of-options righty James Kaprielian and prospects Ken Waldichuk, Kyle Muller, JP Sears and Adrian Martinez. It’s at least possible the A’s will use a six-man group early in the season, though their exact plans will be dependent on both the health and performance of this group during Spring Training.
The NPB/MLB posting system allows a posted player to negotiate with all 30 MLB clubs; the player’s former team is subsequently entitled to a posting/release fee that’s equal to 20% of the first $25MM on a contract, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter. Given that it’s a one-year deal, the A’s are on the hook for a release fee that’s 20% of the $3.25MM guaranteed to Fujinami. That fee will be paid to the team and is separate from the value of the contract paid to Fujinami himself.
Jon Morosi of MLB.com first reported the A’s and Fujinami were in ongoing contract discussions. Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported the A’s were signing Fujinami to a one-year deal. Bob Nightengale of USA Today was first to report the $3.25MM guarantee. Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported the $1MM in incentives.
Cool. I like the unknown when foreign talent comes here. And it gives us a reason to follow the A’s a bit more.
This could create quite the international buzz … in fact, if they pick up a couple of fans in Japan, they could double their fan base!
I want to know the contract parameters. The biggest question I have is, do the A’s have any team options beyond next season? They will probably be the worst team in the league next year so it’s not like he will help them contend. I hope they do have some team options just in case he really turns it around. Signing him and paying a posting fee just to trade him as a 2-month rental isn’t going to net much of a return in trades without any team options for 2024 and beyond. I hope this guy does well. The way that Tigers manager treated him was brutal and he should never be allowed around pitchers again. The parameters really interest me because if he is good there still isn’t much in this for the A’s. Also, what the heck is his salary? Does he have any incentives tied in? This information would be great if someone involved in the contract would release the information.
I think they have a couple, but don’t sleep on the A’s just yet. Everyone said the same thing back in 2012 and 2018, and look what happened: They were competitive? The pitching is actually looking very promising. It’s the offense that needs to be worked out. They will win more games, but they won’t be competitive until the 2024 season most likely.
The Nationals will repeat with the worst record in baseball.
The A’s are the high Triple A Club to test talent. If it’s a success then off they go to another team..
“Sad but True” –Metallica
It’s only fixed when the butts quit sitting the seats.
Whoa! I totally forgot about this guy in FA. Nobody had a better offer? I know he’s had some control issues but one year seems like an easy decision for a lot of teams needing relief pitching (Giants, Phillies, Angels, TX, & Padres/Mets, just because they’re in on everyone).
Agreed.
Perhaps he really wanted to start and the A’s were the ones who promised him he could.
Good point. That certainly would limit his options. I know there’s a tendency for a west coast preference too due to the geographical proximity to Japan.
Maybe he didnt want to be a relief pitcher which leads us to the deal he made.
Was wondering the same thing. How did the A’s sneak past all the better teams and bigger markets?
Oh well, good signing so congrats to them!
The only team to guarantee a starting rotation spot, most likely.
I don’t mean to be a wow guy on here, but wow!
You don’t see the A’s sign Japanese guys too often. I know they got Tomioka a few years back, but he was singed from the Japanese independent league and didn’t pitch that great in the minors last year. Then there was that one infielder (I forget his name) several years back but was a failed signing who never even played a game in the majors.
Hiroyuki Nakajima is the guy your thinking of. He was supposed to be a big SS for the A’s but fell flat in Spring, underwhelmed in the minors and never panned out.
I knew it started with an N.
161 pitches in one appearance? I know not all pitches are built the same but, wow. I can’t imagine the blow back a manager would get leaving a pitcher that young in to get that torched AND throw that many pitches.
Yeah that was BS. I know pitchers throw a lot more innings in Japan than what we’re accustomed to, but that was just a spiteful and misguided thing to do to a young pitcher. Their “tough love” is not always the best course of action.
Japanese teams generally employ six-man rotations, however, so the aggregate total # of pitches in a season is less. That said, yea, 161 is way too much.
Oh please! Pitchers did this all the time back in the day. This is only alarming because you’re groomed to think so.
But we’re not living in “back in the day” anymore, are we?
moneyballer is
Right because pitchers could do it then but not now because of…….evolution?
Be we know now that performance drops after 100, because we know that for every pitch over 100, the probability of ripping the UCL increases. “Back in my day…” is such a crappy flex.
Because it wasn’t safe and bad for physical health?…
And were expected to throw complete games and threw at 80-90% effort when that kind of pitch total was ‘normal’. Not getting out of the first doing that today
That’s because kids are simply told to throw hard, and they no longer get taught how to pitch.
@moneyballer, sure but how many of those pitchers pitched until 40 (like Verlander) or 42 (like Scherzer) at an elite level? And how many more guys flamed out before they even hit their prime because of things like that? That whole “man up and play through the injury” mentality is just dumb both for the team and the player. That’s why teams protect players more now. Do you want a pitcher that can go 300 innings a year for 3 or 4 years before he blows up or a 180 inning guy for 10 or 12 years?
Innings pitched in the late 60s/early 70s were higher than they had been since early 1900s, and higher than they have been since then, yet that era produced by far the hugest number of (a) 20-year careers, (b) 40-plus year old pitchers, (c) 150-plus win careers of any era ever. Ryan/Seaver/Koosman/P Niekro/J Niekro/G Perry/ J Perry/Osteen/Cuellar/Palmer/Jenkins/ Sutton/ John/ Tiant / Marichal / Gibson/ Reuss / Blyleven / Hunter / Holtzman / Blue
The generation after THAT – ’71 up until Clemens or so – were not good, as a group, in terms of injury, inconsistency, lack of longevity….
The thing that modern Jamesian analytic worshippers absolutely REFUSE to even consider, is the possibility (certainty, in my view) that some generations of players, or hitters thereof, or pitchers thereof, are simply
Better. Than other generations.
you forgot Jim Kaat
and Lolich, and Wilbur Wood
Baller,, remember when a pitcher who threw 90 mph was a fireballer? They mostly pitched to contact as well. The arm can’t go 150 pitches when your fastball is 95+. Too much effort and strain.
See, the assumption is that those pitchers threw 90 rather than 95 because they couldnt. Pitchers used to be taught to pitch as much of the game as they could, rather than 5 innings, or 90-100 innings. They didn’t try to throw full tilt every pitch. 7 innings is always more valuable than 5.
@stymeedone, See Christy Mathewson’s “Pitching In A Pinch” btw, I just googled it, and project guttenberg has it up on the web – FASCINATING!!!!!
“I have always been against a twirler pitching himself out, when there is no necessity for it, as so many youngsters do. They burn them through for eight innings and then, when the pinch comes, something is lacking. A pitcher must remember that there are eight other men in the game, drawing more or less salary to stop balls hit at them, and he must have confidence in them. Some pitchers will put all that they have on each ball. This is foolish for two reasons.
In the first place, it exhausts the man physically and, when the pinch comes, he has not the strength to last it out. But second and more important, it shows the batters everything that he has, which is senseless. A man should always hold something in reserve, a surprise to spring when things get tight. If a pitcher has displayed his whole assortment to the batters in the early part of the game and has used all his speed and his fastest breaking curve, then, when the crisis comes, he “hasn’t anything” to fall back on.”
Congrats to the Mets for giving up on Ryan, who likely didn’t warm up until his 200th pitch plus warmups. Then hung out with flamer Frank Tanana.
I’m sure your mechanics break down late in the outing especially if you’re not conditioned to throw that many pitches. Bad mechanics can equal serious injury.
Pitchers back in the day threw much slower fastballs, and also much fewer sliders (the most stressful off-speed pitch on the arm). Pitching long outings using the current style is legitimately riskier than it was in the past, and that’s why teams don’t let guys do it any more.
Nolan Ryan when he was with the Angels threw 235 pitches in a extra inning game against the Red Sox in 1974.
Seems like everytime the Ang
els faced the Red Sox,they hooked up against Luis Tiant. That’s the byproduct of a 4 man rotation.
BACK IN THE DAY.
You had 4 man rotations.Pitcher throwing complete games and throwing high number pitch counts.And they had to get regular jobs in the off season. Unless you were a Super Star.
2023.
We have pitch counts. SP’s rarely going 6 innings. Getting hurt more often. And making millions of $$$$.
A guy gets a hang nail he’s on the IL till the All Star Break.
Feel free to stop watching the sport, then, if modern baseball is so unbearable. No one is holding a gun to your head.
and he paid for it by needing TJS at age 47, imagine that. dude could have pitched even longer if he wanted to
Should have been grounds for an instant dismissal. That outing could have cost him his career and at least delayed his trajectory by several years.
POPPIN-If you’re referring to Ryan. He’s equivalent of Trout in the form of a pitcher. A generational type player. We may never see stats like his again. The way things are done in MLB now I’m almost sure of it. And that’s way pitchers pitched back then. Yeah they kept pitch counts back then, but a pitcher like Ryan would let the manager know when was done.
Sorry, I replied to the wrong comment, I was referring to the Japanese manager who left Shintaro in for 161 pitches.
Nolan Ryan was a beast, I am not questioning his methods whatsoever.
It’d be one thing if he was at least accustomed to throwing that many pitches, having been built up to it. Of course, even then it would represent a very high workload few pitchers could likely handle on a routine basis.
To force him to throw so many pitches out of the blue is clear malpractice.
How many pitches had he thrown his previous 3 outings. Curious minds want to know, since you say this was out of the blue.
I feel like all Rucinski and Fujinami do for the A’s is take away innings that the young guys should be given, but to each their own.
I’m thinking now that the A’s might trade Blackburn and/or Irvin before the season starts. I would much rather see the young guys gets rotation spots too like Waldichuk and Muller.
There was even talk of letting AJ Puk try out for the Rotation again, now that he is finally healthy.
Puk should probably be closing a la Josh Hader
That report too makes me think more that the A’s will trade one or both of Blackburn and Irvin. This signing is also evident to me that Kaprilian is not going to be ready for OD.
If Blackburn picks up where he left off last season he will be a very sought after arm at the trade deadline. Irvin could be dealt either before training camp or during the season
I think Kap would be more valuable out of the bullpen…he loses velocity and control consistently after innings 3-5
both will be easy trade candidates if they show that they’re able to pitch in the MLB. there are so many question marks all over their rotation and BP that neither will be blocking any younger arms IMO
I like both, it’s clear the A’s have to trade some of their pitching, with so many prospects in development, Rucinski and Fujiyama could both be good candidates for a deadline deal, or the A’s could keep them in the rotation and flip a few prospects who are pitching well in AAA.
They have two nice players in the offense in Ruiz and Langeliers, I like Noda too, Can’t really give them much of chance to compete in the AL West but that’s what makes the A’s a fun team to watch this year, a real underdog with some nice players developing.
Fujiyama could be the Japanese pitcher who
stands out this season and its likely a bargain of a one year deal, meanwhile the Mets pay a fortune for five years of Kodai Sengai.
The pitching is going to be a strength for Oakland. Need to get that offense going though. Honestly, I can see them back in competition in 2024, BUT, with the A’s you never know. They have surprised the league in multiple seasons.
The A’s offense is going to be abysmal. They’ll probably trade Brown before the season starts too.
so you think rookies like Allen and Langeliers stand zero chance of improving? they probably don’t trade Brown until next offseason unless they plan on giving Tyler Soderstrom the 1B job out of spring training.
Soderstrom is likely going to be a late season call up. I think Langeliers will be decent but not Murphy type production, Laureano will probably improve but will be a mid season trade, Allen might improve very slightly but still not be much of a productive offensive player, hopefully Kemp returns to being a more consistent guy offensively but like Allen he doesn’t offer much, Peterson and Díaz were picked up more for their defense and versatility not their offense, Garcia has a ton of power but a strikeout machine, we’ll see how Ruiz and Noda do in the majors, and Pache….yeah, our offense is not going to be good.
Pache I hâd high hopes for that a change of scenery would do him good, he still has time, but its not looking too good for him. I’m hoping Jordan Diaz can build off of his stellar minor league season and brief call up.
Jordan Díaz certainly impressed me for his age. He is a great contact hitter with a bit of pop in his bat, but he tends to swing at almost everything. He’ll need to work on his patience to wait for the right pitch, but I’m very optimistic with him. He’ll be the A’s future DH because his defense is not particularly strong at any position.
Pache has the build to be a great power-speed combo guy, but he’s just not a good hitter. I wasn’t expecting much from him to begin with, but he was downright terrible. Regardless, I’d like the A’s to keep him around for his glove as a fourth outfielder and pinch runner.
Isn’t the best case scenario that he does well and they flip him at the deadline?
100% their plan. if he stinks then it’s just a one year deal and it’s not like they’re spending much money elsewhere anyways
In Fujinami’s 161 pitch outing, he had thrown 131 through seven innings already, and his Manager (Kanemoto) sent him back out there, believing he needs to “feel like an ace”. Fuji gave up 3 runs in the eighth, and had arm troubles immediately after.
Kanemoto admitted he wanted him to throw until the end, no matter how many pitches he threw. Brutal.
Kanemoto is not currently managing in NPB.
Darvish regularly threw more pitches. So did Tanaka in high school. Matsuzaka threw 255 pitches one game—the day after he threw 145. Spahn and Marichel both threw over 200 pitches in the same 16 inning complete game. Ryan went over 200 pitches on multiple occasions. It’s not impossible, and wasn’t even that rare before pitch counts became a thing.
There are definitely some freakish exceptions with rubber arms!
The difficult part is it’s virtually impossible to know who possesses those rubber arms and who doesn’t ahead of time. And the only way to found out threatens injury for those who cannot handle such a workload. Catch-22.
The sad thing is there are definitely some posters here who share the same mentality as his manager. “Back in my day guys used to throw 500 pitches!!! Get back out there!”
Fujinami looked like a hell of an MLB prospect early in his career, but it sure seems like the Hanshin Tigers burned him out with too many innings pitched early in his career. I remember the 161 pitch outing too, and it wasn’t the only ridiculously long start Fujinami had early in his career when he was pitching great.
Uh-oh. Brawl incoming, this guy has no command and tends to hit people. Maybe the A’s hope they can fix him for cheap? He’s motivated enough, I’ll give him that. The first American dentist who sees him might have a heart attack, I hope the team let’s him get braces or something. I don’t think Japanese health insurance covers braces for kids like the do here from what I’ve seen.
NPB Prospect
“…ooh wow!”
Is this Ohtani “lite”
He’s Ohtani 3.0.
He’ll be the new face of the MLB. Trout and Ohtani are washed up.
A’s are garbage, this guy could be great and then sold at the deadline. Watch!
I mean nobody is arguing with you, seems very random but ok.
The A’s have an interesting pitching staff to say the least
Glad to see it was a small market team that signed one of these guys this time.
Looks to be a either a complete washout likely and he may be a good relief pitcher
Potential huge bargain along with Rucinski.
Aloha folks, konnichiwa! Fujinami-san, gunbaremasu desune! I hope Oakland helps him with previous throwing issues, stretches him out as our season is longer here. I’m sure they will watch his innings/pitches to begin. Omedetou Gozaimasu, congratulations coming to the MLB! Mahalo
Reminds me of what Billy Martin did to the Oakland pitchers in the 70s. Pitched them till their arms fell off. This is why you have 5 inning starters today
It wasn’t in the 79s it was 1981….sorry for the typo fellas
If they’re using him out of the rotation, they better start working on his stamina to go 5+. He only pitched 107 innings
Maybe that’s why everyone is saying the A’s will trade him at the deadline. If healthy, he will be around 100 innings by then. Buyer beware!
So pumped for the A’s. Been a fan since I was a kid. Of course the cool colors had a lot to do with that.
Glad to see a low market team get someone like this. At least they try to stay competitive, albeit they have to re-tool much more often just to stay afloat.
They try to stay….competitive?
yes TRY as opposed to the lowly Reds, Pirates ( 2023 seems different), KC,
i’m starting to think I could write “the sky is blue” and someone would have a problem with that!?
A’s were bad last year, They were competitive or won the division from 21-18..Then 3 bad years. Then from 2014-2010 they were competitive or won the division. Let’s not act like they are never trying to compete. They are just in a lull.
I wonder who gets bumped from the 40 man. I would think it may be Stevenson
They’ll have to decide between Stevenson a good defensive outfielder with limited offensive potential or Rooker poor defensively but an unproven offensive potential guy.
Or
They could trade Brown or one of their SP’s of Blackburn and Irvin.
This should be the move that puts the A’s over the top. WORLD SERIES BOUND!!!
Don’t sleep on this A’s rotation lads n lassies
Awfully cheap for a starting pitcher, a little pricey for a relief arm.
I wonder if Bauer is next for the A’s. Bad team with a terrible owner, few fans left, little controversy. Then with the p.r. heat off, they flip him at the deadline to a contender (Yanks, Mets, Padres) that declined to sign him when he was released by the Dodgers.
All the “Back in my day” dudes are living in the past. Babe Ruth would wildly defecate himself in the box against a bullpen guy in today’s game. The talent disparity is too far apart. Luis Tiant would get hammered.
A couple more million to Fujinami and the Hanshin Tigers would have been 4th or 5th on the As payroll.