After 12 excellent seasons in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano is expected to sign with a major league team. Sugano is a true free agent and thus does not need to be posted. He’s eligible to sign a major league deal with any club for any amount, with no release fee heading to his former club — the Yomiuri Giants. The Angels are among the big league teams with interest in the 35-year-old righty, Jon Morosi of MLB.com reports on the MLB Network (video link; Sugano talk beginning around the 2:55 mark).
A two-time winner of the Sawamura Award (Japan’s Cy Young equivalent), Sugano has flirted with the idea of a major league run before. He was posted by the Giants and gauged interest from MLB teams in the 2020-21 offseason but wound up staying put on a four-year, $40MM contract with opt-out clauses after each season (a massive commitment by NPB standards). Beyond the magnitude of that contract, Morosi points out that Sugano had other reasons for feeling committed to his NPB club; Sugano’s uncle, Tatsunori Hara, was in the midst of a 17-year run as the Giants’ manager. He stepped down after the 2023 season, however.
Sugano could perhaps have looked to test free agency last winter, but his 2023 season was cut short by an elbow injury. He began the season on the shelf and wound up pitching only 86 innings with a 3.14 ERA that’s still strong but a ways from his typical standard. There were no such issues in 2024. To the contrary, Sugano enjoyed one of the finest seasons of his career in 2024. The 6’1″ righty fired 156 2/3 frames with an immaculate 1.67 earned run average. His 18.2% strikeout rate doesn’t stand out, but Sugano’s 2.6% walk rate was sensational. He’s always had pinpoint command — Sugano has walked just 3.8% of opponents over the past three seasons and just 4.7% in his career — but a 2.6% mark is on another level even by his own lofty standards.
In many ways, Sugano makes sense as an Angels target in particular. The Halos clearly have a dire need for rotation help, but owner Arte Moreno has typically eschewed long-term deals — or even multi-year deals of any kind — for starting pitchers. The three-year, $39MM contract signed by Tyler Anderson two offseasons ago was the first multi-year deal the Angels had given to a free agent starting pitcher since Joe Blanton in 2012. The Halos haven’t gone beyond three years for a starting pitcher since signing lefty C.J. Wilson for five years and $77.5MM back in December 2011 (MLBTR Contract Tracker link).
Sugano, already 35 years old, isn’t likely to command a long-term arrangement. It’s possible a team could still put forth a multi-year offer, but given his age and lack of experience against big league pitching, a weighty long-term deal would be surprising. That generally meshes with Moreno’s free agent tendencies, and the Angels have sufficient payroll space to put together a compelling offer for Sugano on a one- or two-year arrangement. RosterResource projects a payroll of about $175MM right now. That’s roughly in line with where they ended the 2024 season, but Moreno has already stated this winter that his team’s payroll will increase in 2025.
As things stand, the Angels’ rotation is threadbare. They already signed veteran Kyle Hendricks on a one-year, $2.5MM deal in hopes that the soft-tossing righty could rebound after a disappointing end to his lengthy Cubs tenure. Joining him in the rotation will be the aforementioned Anderson and righty Jose Soriano, at the very least. The other spots are less concrete. Former first-rounder and top prospect Reid Detmers should get another look but spent much of the 2024 season in Triple-A after struggling in the majors. Righty Jack Kochanowicz posted a 3.99 ERA in 11 starts during last year’s MLB debut but did so with a 9.4% strikeout rate that stood as the lowest of the 541 pitchers who tossed at least 20 innings. Top prospect Caden Dana is largely ready for a look but will need to earn a spot in spring training.
The Angels have been among the most active teams in the still nascent stages of the offseason. In addition to signing Hendricks, they’ve acquired Jorge Soler in a trade with the Braves and given out big league contracts to free agents Travis d’Arnaud (two years, $12MM) and Kevin Newman (one year, $2.75MM). None of those register as major acquisitions, necessarily, but they’re indicative that Moreno and GM Perry Minasian are indeed aiming to add to the roster in hopes of beating expectations and emerging as a playoff contender next season, as they indicated last month.
An organization that will need years to reach respectability.
Right, why sign a 35 year old if your team sucks anyways!
To trade him for prospects midway through, duhhh!
(Wait, this is Anaheim we’re talking about, they won’t even be able to do that right.)
Not if the owner bought some pitching. Snell has voiced a desire to sign with the Angels. You sign Snell and Walker Buheller– and I would argue Trevor Bauer (But a viable third arm) and suddenly they have a winning team. Trade Anderson for more prospects. Do this and the Angels would be a winner and create depth. Trade Schanuel and sign Walker to play first. Trade Ward and Detmers for Baty to play third from the Mets. But they won’t sign any front line pitchers.
Art is much like the cowboys Jerry Jones. Plenty of money, just not the skill set to be relevant. They have blamed everyone but Art for years of poor management and unsuccessful seasons. It just proves that rich or poor teams will never be successful if ownership and management is really bad. As a Pirates fan, I have no room to talk but sympathize with Angels fans about having below mediocre team and seasons.
Try being an Angel fan and a Clipper fan…
Though I will say clippers owner is wayyyyyy better than Moreno but the previous one…we know all about that scum bag
Fans have been blaming Arte for years.
That’s because he’s been to blame for years!
Some people say there’s a woman to blame, but I know….
…it’s your own damn fault?
This season has been a disaster for the Cowboys, but Jerruah is much better than Arte. Arte wasted a career of an all-time great and was gonna waste another’s until he left.
If anything, Jim Crane is like Jerruah. Stubborn and let his ego get in the way of potentially more success (firing James Click).
Look back at Trout’s career and those Angels teams, and notice how quickly they fell out of contention when he started getting hurt. Even if the Angels had done a rebuild starting in 2016, or when they signed Ohtani and had to wait four years for him to be the player advertised, they still would’ve struggle to be more than a .500 team. Every star they’ve had (even Trout and Ohtani) has either sharply declined or struggled just to stay healthy. Ohtani just happens to be the one player who bounced back and had 3 monster seasons before leaving. But when you have $90 million committed to Ohtani, Trout, and Rendon, and only one of them can at least stay healthy enough to put up big numbers, you’re not winning anything. If the Dodgers lost Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman for most of the season, no chance. Same with the Yankees and Judge and Soto. On and on. There’s a reason winning teams have those players. I don’t particularly blame players for their health struggles but if Trout’s career has been wasted at all, it’s due to his inability to stay healthy for much of the last 8 years. No such thing as a career wasted if a star player is healthy. Just ask Ted Williams and Ken Griffey, Jr.
@RyÅnWKrol
Mike Trout had about 8-9 MVP level seasons. The Angels went to the playoffs in one of them. They had a .500 or better record in only 4 such seasons.
@ryanwkrol the difference is between Yankees or Dodgers over Angels, is depth. Injuries happen and Yankees and Dodgers had just enough depth to keep the train rolling along on the track. Angels lacked that part because of trades to acquire a player or two. They deflated their who farm system and depth for many years. Over the last 2-3 years, they have retooled their who farm system and have a few prospects that look pretty good. Had the Angels had the prospect and depth 5-10 years ago in Prime Trout era, they wouldn’t have “wasted” Trout talents. Trying to trade the system and signing every possible free agent to push for a playoff birth, hurt them in the long run. From pitchers like Jessie Chavez (twice, Mike Napoli being traded for Chavez), Trevor Cahill, Jose Quintana, and others I have missed, to hitters like Matthews Jr, Cozard, Justin Upton (traded prospects), and some others, they really shot themselves in the foot. You can potentially throw in Pujols and Hamilton in this too.
Point I am making is Art is the rich man version of poor man Bob Nutting. They both have poor judgment and lack serious baseball knowledge. One goes after 1 year wonders (Art) and the other goes after 1 year from retirement burnt out has been (Nutting). Both owners ending with the same result each year.
Yes. This. Trout and Rendon’s contracts are killing the Angels and I don’t see any potential success for the club until they can either stay on the field or their contracts expire.
My fantasy is that when they get their impending season-ending injuries early next year they throw in the towel and retire but neither of them would ever do that albeit for different reasons.
Jerry is good at drafting. Lamb, Parsons, a consistently good to great offensive line.
Arte’s tenure is noted for skimping on scouting and development and horrible drafting.
As much as I dislike Jerry, the Angels would be far better off as a team of good, organizationally developed players than what they are under Arte.
It’s a myth that Jerry micromanages everything. That was the case 20 years ago, but he’s delegated in many areas. As you said, look at their success in the draft over the last decade. Where Jerruah gets in trouble is with his big mouth.
Go get him. We need pitching and the team needs some reason for the media to cover it. Adding an intriguing Japanese arm does both.
Dude is gonna want 3+ years to end his career and Moreno will never do that.
3/45 with an option for a 4th year seems reasonable to me.
Yeah, but now would be a great time to do so.
Anderson and Hendricks are gone either in July or after this year.
There’s a group of young, unproven guys behind them. Landing one veteran to help that transition would be nice.
Good chance he performs really well too. He won’t deliver a sub 2 ERA, but he clearly knows how to pitch.
I say two years plus an option year at 18 mil. He would be a good pickup.
This is the problem with Moreno. A 78-year-old owner who calls the shots could care less about building for the future.
Lots of interesting japanese/korean players outside of roki. Sugano, murakami, hye seong kim. Mlb bout to be flooded with npb /kbo stars
Give him a 2 year deal, add an option year if needed
I originally thought 3 years, but I think 2+ an option is better. Not sure if he accepts without the guaranteed 3rd year though.
Perhaps make it an option that automatically bears after a certain number of starts or innings.
That way he can guarantee himself more money.
Arte never learns. Spending on middle of the pack free agent starters usually gets you nowhere. Wanting to just “ emerge” as a potential playoff contender and being a bonafide playoff contender takes spending on top of the rotation type pitching.
They should go all in on Burnes or Snell. Sign a big hitter like Santander or Walker, or Adames for SS while Neto is out. Move Adames to 3B when Neto gets back, and take your chances hoping Trout stays somewhat healthy too. Hope the young guys catch up.
I love your fantasy, but how much would that cost? Of course, our friends up and down the coast don’t care about a small matter of money; they enjoy giving their fans winners.
It’s amazing to me how owners somehow get fans to be really supportive of their self-imposed budgets.
There’s lots of places to rationally cut payroll this year, plus a number of contracts expiring in the near future. Total payroll this year sits at a projected 175 million, goes down to 115 next year (not including arbs), and just 50 million the year after that.
They could trade Anderson and one of Ward or Rengifo while they have peak value this winter and replace him with a top tier starter to lead the staff for years to come.
Or, just let the deals expire when they naturally do, and reassess when the Rendon deal is over, adding at the margins until then. They’ll continue to disappoint though, hoping for middling results at best.
Curious what MLBTR writers predict contract amount could be. 2-3 yrs $13-17MM per?
Im pretty sure they already predicted his contract in the “top 50 free agents” article.
Rangers or Padres seem way more likely.
Angels aren’t a serious organization. Of course the Angels will go for the older Japanese guy with arm trouble. Angels got lucky with Shohei and blew it.
I don’t know. At just 35 and only 12 seasons on his arm, he’s a bit young to be the next Angels overpay. And I’m not sure that Japanese Central League past performance has the same marketing value as MLB past performance. But merch sales and viewership from his long time fans in Japan will make up for some of that. Sign him up!
He is 35 sure he had an incredible year last season, but his prime years are gone and now his K rate is low maybe way too low but walks are low too.
MLB if your a pitcher and you rely getting out by players hitting the ball your in trouble especially in your declining age years. Teams must know he is a huge risk to payout where potential for bust is very big
He’s not signing a one-year MLB contract.
Im an Angels fan who doesnt think they should go after Sugano. I’d rather take the risk on Roki. Younger, lesser cost. If Snell has said he wants to come to Anaheim, then that’s a no brainer, sign him.
I heard an interesting trade suggestion this morning. Ward for Bohm.
We didn’t have Trout in 2020. He played 53 games that year. And 36 games in 2021. Still sure of your opinion?