Left-hander Shinnosuke Ogasawara is looking to move to the majors, and as per a report from Yahoo Sports Japan (Japanese language link), he’ll ask the Chunichi Dragons to make him available to MLB teams via the posting system this offseason. The Yakyu Cosmopolitan also reported earlier this year that Ogasawara was aiming to pitch for a big league team in 2025, and MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reported (via X) back in April that Major League scouts were watching Ogasawara pitch in Japan.
The southpaw celebrates his 27th birthday on Tuesday, and he has appeared with the Dragons in each of the last nine Nippon Professional Baseball seasons. However, since he is short of nine full years of NPB service time, Ogasawara will need to be posted in order to make the move to North American baseball.
To recap the posting system, any team that signs Ogasawara will have to pay a separate posting fee to the Dragons that is contingent on the size of the contract — the 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, plus 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter. If Ogasawara is posted, Major League teams will have 45 days to reach an agreement with the left-hander. If no deal is reached within that window of time, Ogasawara will return to the Dragons for the 2025 NPB season.
Ogasawara has a 3.66 ERA over 1095 career innings for the Dragons, and he has tossed at least 141 1/3 innings in each of the last four seasons. In 2024, he had a 2.99 ERA in 141 1/3 frames, with a very impressive 3.42% walk rate but also only a 13.87% strikeout rate. While Ogasawara’s control has only been getting better during his NPB career, he has never been a big strikeout pitcher, and this season’s low rate of missed bats will certainly stand out as a potential red flag to big league evaluators.
It remains to be seen how highly Ogasawara will be judged by MLB teams, though he’ll be one of the youngest rotation candidates available in this year’s free agent market. With scouts already keeping an eye on his work for the Dragons, Ogasawara figures to draw some attention should the Dragons decide to post him.
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