Today is the first day of the new international signing period, so it’s time for me to share updated evaluations and bonus information for the players in this class. An overview of the rules that govern signing international amateurs can be found in MLB’s glossary here, while more thorough and detailed information can be found starting on page 316 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and page 38 of the Official Professional Baseball Rules Book. Players have until December 15 to agree to terms before this signing period closes.

Short scouting reports, tool grades, and projected signing teams for 59 players from the 2026 class can now be viewed over on The Board. The table below includes team and bonus projections for all players my sources indicate will receive $1 million or more, as well as a handful of six-figure sleepers who emerged during compilation. Below, I’ll remind you of my process for building this list, and then discuss some storylines coloring this year’s signing period. Read the rest of this entry »

World Baseball Classic managers were made available to the media during the Winter Meetings, and I took that opportunity to ask Chinese Taipei’s Hao-Jiu Tseng about some of the best arms in Taiwan. I had specific pitchers in mind, but opted to begin with an open-ended question rather than cite any names. The response I got was likewise non-specific.

“I hope all pitchers from our team can be known by all baseball fans,” Tseng told me via an interpreter. “There are so many young pitchers. Most of them are still playing at the minor league level, but this tournament can help them improve their skills and experience, and someday grow into great players at a top level.”

The first pitcher he mentioned when I followed up was Wei-En Lin, a 20-year-old left-hander in the Athletics system who was featured here at FanGraphs back in August. The second was the hurler I was most interested in hearing about
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“Jo Hsi Hsu pitches in the [Chinese Professional Baseball League], ”Tseng said of the recently-turned-25-year-old right-hander, who had a 2.05 ERA and 120 strikeouts, with just 78 hits allowed, over 114 innings for the Wei Chuan Dragons. “He is a posted player this offseason. Right now he is eligible to negotiate with foreign clubs. He possibly will transfer his contract to Japan or America. He is the ace of the CPBL. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for another cycle of prospect lists and, as has become customary, we’re starting with scouting reports on pro players in foreign leagues, with a focus on players available for MLB free agency this offseason. On The Board, you can access a fresh batch of scouting reports and evaluations for relevant players from Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korea Baseball Organization, and the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan, as well as reports on some young players we’ve identified as potentially impactful long-term prospects. For those who need a crash course on the age- and pro experience-driven lines of demarcation that dictate how MLB teams sign international players, we’d point you to a number of MLB.com glossary entries, including those on international free agency for those in Asian pro leagues, international amateur free agency and bonus pool restrictions, the Japanese posting system, and the Korean posting system.

It can be a bit overwhelming to sift through so many different types of players on that section of The Board — it’s a real apples and oranges situation when we’re talking about some guys who are in their 30s and others who are fairly young — so we’ve broken many of them into digestible subgroups below, with focus on the crop that is purported to be coming over this offseason. You’ll notice that some players appear across multiple categories. The Board has each player’s full scouting report and tool grades — think of this as more of a table of contents. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the dust has settled on teams’ pursuit of Roki Sasaki, and clubs have signed most of their 2025 international prospects, it is time to turn our attention to the international pros whose 2025 seasons will soon get underway and to the tippy top of the 2026 international amateur class. All of my top 2025 international prospects have now signed. Twins outfielder Carlos Taveras was the last from that group to put pen to paper, signing a couple of days ago for a shade over $1 million. The players and rankings from that class have been archived on their own page of The Board, including the couple of Japanese pros who came over from NPB this offseason. Remaining on the active International Players page (which you’re going to want to open in a new tab) are the foreign pros I think readers should know about and follow for this season and beyond, as well as a couple of amateur players from the upcoming 2026 class (more on those lads in a few paragraphs). Read the rest of this entry »

Wednesday is the first day of the new international signing period, so it’s time for me to share expanded and updated evaluations of the players from the class. An overview of the rules that govern signing international amateurs can be found in MLB’s glossary here, while more thorough and detailed documentation can be found starting on page 316 of the CBA and page 38 of the Official Professional Baseball Rules Book. Players have until December 15 to sign before this signing period closes.

Scouting reports, tool grades, and projected signing teams for about 50 players from the 2025 class can now be viewed over on The Board. Because the International Players tab has an apples and oranges mix of older pros from Asian leagues and soon-to-be first-year players, there is no explicit ranking for this amateur class on The Board. That said, I’ve stacked the class with a ranking in the table below, and as usual, that ranking will live on the International Players dropdown of The Board after most of these guys have finished signing in the coming weeks.

Below I’ll run down how I compiled this list, talk about the class as a whole, and then discuss how Roki Sasaki’s presence is impacting the proceedings. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for another cycle of prospect lists, and as I’ve become accustomed to doing for the last few seasons, I’m starting with scouting reports on pro players in foreign leagues, with a focus on players available for MLB free agency this offseason. On The Board, you can see a fresh batch of scouting reports and evaluations for relevant players from Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korea Baseball Organization, and the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan, as well as reports on some young players I’ve identified as potentially impactful long-term prospects. For those who need a crash course on the age- and pro experience-driven lines of demarcation that dictate how MLB teams sign international players, I’d point you to a number of MLB.com glossary entries, including those on international free agency for those in Asian pro leagues, international amateur free agency and bonus pool restrictions, the Japanese posting system, and the Korean posting system.

It can be overwhelming to sift through so many different types of players on that section of The Board — it’s a real apples and oranges situation when we’re talking about some guys who are in their 30s and others who are still teenagers — so I’ve got many of them broken into digestible subgroups below. You’ll notice that some players appear across multiple categories. The Board has each player’s full scouting report and tool grades — think of this as more of a table of contents. Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees’ acquisition of $750,000 worth of 2024 international bonus pool space at the trade deadline got my gears turning around the seemingly looming Roki Sasaki posting. There has been considerable reporting (such as this Chelsea Janes Washington Post jawn) to suggest that teams expect, or at least are planning for, Sasaki to be posted this offseason, and my sources tend to agree (though not universally). In this piece, I’m going to talk about how Sasaki looks (spoiler: not his best), how his posting will be different than that of most other Japanese players if he indeed comes over this offseason or next, the way teams have been behaving and preparing for his potential posting, and what shenanigans they might get up to as they continue to do so.

For those unfamiliar…

Sasaki has been the LeBron James of Japanese baseball since his junior year, a known generational high school talent who has gone on to deliver on and perhaps exceed expectations at the highest level of Japanese baseball. Sasaki turns 23 in November and his feats of strength are already legendary. He touched 101 in high school and once threw nearly 500 pitches in an eight-day span, including a 12-inning, 194-pitch complete game during which he also hit the game-winning two-run homer. He was the first pick in the 2019 NPB Draft by the Chiba Lotte Marines, had a sub-2.00 ERA in his 2021 rookie season, and then transcended the sport in 2022 when he threw 17 consecutive perfect innings that April. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday is the first day of the new international signing period, so I’ve expanded and updated my evaluations of players from the class. An overview of the rules that govern signing international amateurs can be found on MLB’s glossary here, while more thorough and detailed documentation can be found starting on page 316 of the CBA and page 38 of the Official Professional Baseball Rules Book. Players have until December 15 to sign before this signing period closes.

Scouting reports, tool grades, and projected signing teams and bonuses for just shy of 50 players from the 2024 class can now be viewed over on The Board. Because the International Players tab has an apples and oranges mix of older pros from Asian leagues and soon-to-be first-year players, there is no explicit ranking for this amateur class on The Board. However, I’ve stacked the class with a ranking in the table below, and as usual, that ranking will live on the International Players dropdown of The Board after most of these guys have finished signing in the coming weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for another cycle of prospect lists, and as I’ve become accustomed to doing for the last few seasons, I’m starting with scouting reports on pro players in foreign leagues, with a focus on players available for MLB free agency this offseason. On The Board, you can see a fresh batch of scouting reports and evaluations of relevant players from Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korea Baseball Organization, and the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan, as well as reports on some young players I’ve identified as potentially impactful long-term prospects. I’ll update the amateur portion of this list prior to signing day in January, but any player from the upcoming 2024 class who I had already written up for this year’s Prospect Week remains on there. For those who need a crash course on the age- and pro experience-driven lines of demarcation that dictate how MLB teams sign international players, I’d point you to a number of MLB.com glossary entries, including those on international free agency for those in Asian pro leagues, international amateur free agency and bonus pool restrictions, the Japanese posting system, and the Korean posting system.

It can be overwhelming to sift through so many different types of players on that section of The Board — it’s a real apples and oranges situation when we’re talking about some guys who are 30 and others who are still teenagers — so I’m going to break most of them up into more digestible subgroups below. You’ll notice that some players appear across multiple categories. The Board has each player’s full scouting report and tool grades — think of this as more of a table of contents. Read the rest of this entry »

With the World Baseball Classic in progress this week, now feels like a good time to steal an idea from another sport. In baseball, the international game is a bit vestigial. There has never been a consistent international best-on-best tournament on par with the FIFA World Cup or Olympic ice hockey, in which players desire success with the national team as much as they would success with their club teams.

Baseball hasn’t had that; the Olympics, taking place as they do within the MLB regular season, never featured best-on-best competition. And that’s when the Olympic program includes baseball to begin with. The World Baseball Classic hasn’t been around long enough to gain the kind of legitimacy the World Cup has, and it’s administered in part by Major League Baseball.

The biggest obstacle to a serious international game in baseball is pitcher usage. Pitcher workloads are so tightly monitored, few players and even fewer teams are willing to loan out a fragile and valuable arm to a tournament that’s widely viewed as an exhibition. The second-biggest obstacle is the lack of a powerful independent governing body for the sport; for most of the history of baseball, MLB has been its driving force. Even as various major leagues popped up around the world and the sport flourished at the amateur level, baseball has been centralized in the way hockey, soccer, and basketball never were, and the WBSC isn’t powerful enough to dictate a truly independent prestigious international competition. Read the rest of this entry »