Orioles Sign NPB Legend Tomoyuki Sugano To One-Year Pact
Hi, I’m Ben Clemens. You might know me from such articles as “C’mon, Orioles, Do Something”, “Why Are the Orioles’ Playoff Odds So Low?”, and “Wait, FanGraphs Is Too Low on the Orioles Again?!”. In my spare time, I also write about the rest of the league, but today I’m focusing on Baltimore yet again given their latest signing: The O’s and right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano have agreed to a one-year, $13 million contract.
Sugano has been one of the best pitchers in NPB for more than a decade. The 35-year-old won the Central League MVP in 2014, and he’s added two more MVP awards since then. He also won two Sawamura Awards – think the Cy Young, only for the entire league and with minimum criteria – neither in any of his three MVP seasons. In other words, he’s been racking up hardware like no one else for his entire career.
Reading a scouting report on Sugano is like chicken soup for my command-obsessed soul. If pitching was entirely about hitting a tiny target, Sugano might be the best pitcher in the world. Saying that he has the ball on a string would be offensive to Sugano; I can’t control a yo-yo as well as he can spot his five-pitch arsenal. He walked 16 of the 608 batters he faced last year, a 2.6% rate that would make George Kirby jealous.
It’s not just walk avoidance that sets Sugano apart from the crowd, though. He works the corners and tunnels his pitches off of each other to great effect. He can add or subtract from everything he throws, so his five-pitch mix can feel even deeper when a hitter is trying to figure out what’s coming next. He might not inspire the physical discomfort batters experience when facing triple-digit heat that could come right at their ribcage if the pitcher misses his location, but facing Sugano is like solving a Saturday crossword puzzle, if crossword puzzles threw splitters.
A bit more about that pitch mix. Sugano throws two fastballs, neither of which inspires much confidence. His four-seamer sits 92-93 mph on a good day, with a forgettable movement profile. He mixes in a sinker that he adores when behind in the count, and that does what you’d expect: keep the ball on the ground and homers to a minimum. Both of those are just show-me pitches, though. The real juice is in his bendy pitches.
As is the case for many NPB pitchers, Sugano has a wipeout splitter he uses most frequently with two strikes. He also throws two breaking balls – variously reported as a cutter/slider and a slider/curveball – which act as multi-purpose offerings, allowing him to attack the corners early in counts and hunt whiffs later on. Of those three, only the splitter stands out to me as a plus pitch independent of his impeccable command. That’s a theme here: Everything Sugano does would look iffy if he weren’t dotting the corners, only he is.
At his peak, Sugano’s stuff hummed, which turned his command from an equalizer into an unfair advantage. Now, though, he’s squarely into his latter-year-Greinke phase. He didn’t miss many bats in 2024, even as he put up a 1.67 ERA and won his third MVP. That ERA outstripped his peripherals; he ran a below-average strikeout rate and lived on a combination of soft contact and a total absence of walks. In addition, that ERA isn’t quite as sterling as it sounds. NPB is in the midst of a huge decline in offense. In the Central League, where Sugano pitched, teams averaged 3.22 runs per game in 2024, and hit homers at less than half the rate of the majors. You might be able to get by with a tame fastball in that context, but that kind of pitching profile doesn’t typically play well in the power-happy AL East. But then again, Sugano’s command is far from usual.
So how will Sugano’s outlier skills look in the majors? I have no idea! Here’s what ZiPS thinks about his range of outcomes, though:
| Percentile | ERA+ | ERA | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | 132 | 3.01 | 3.5 |
| 90% | 124 | 3.21 | 3.1 |
| 80% | 113 | 3.53 | 2.5 |
| 70% | 107 | 3.73 | 2.2 |
| 60% | 102 | 3.90 | 2.0 |
| 50% | 100 | 3.99 | 1.8 |
| 40% | 96 | 4.14 | 1.6 |
| 30% | 91 | 4.38 | 1.2 |
| 20% | 87 | 4.57 | 0.9 |
| 10% | 82 | 4.86 | 0.5 |
| 5% | 78 | 5.07 | 0.3 |
If I were the Orioles, I’d be extremely interested in obtaining a pitcher like Sugano on this kind of deal. There’s a decent chance that he ends up as nothing more than an innings-eater, a late-career version of former Yomiuri Giants teammate Miles Mikolas. You wouldn’t want to start that version of Sugano in the playoffs, but he’d be a capable fifth starter.
Even that outcome isn’t exactly a disaster for Baltimore. They have some interesting top-of-rotation arms, but their depth is lacking. They’re counting on a lot of guys – Trevor Rogers, Dean Kremer, Grayson Rodriguez – with durability questions. Zach Eflin threw 165.1 innings this season, and Albert Suarez is a nice swingman, but they’ll need a ton of rotation help. Last year, even with Corbin Burnes leading the staff, Cade Povich and Cole Irvin made 16 starts apiece. Even a diminished version of Sugano could replace those innings comfortably.
The upside case? This guy just tore the second-best baseball league in the world to shreds. He appeared to be on the decline in 2022 and 2023, but he wouldn’t be the first ace pitcher to stage a career renaissance after a few ugly years, and even his ugly years weren’t complete disasters. If he spins a sub-3.00 ERA season out of splitters, deception, and just a tiny bit of life on his fastball, would you truly be floored?
For one year and $13 million, I love the risk/reward here. That’s Alex Cobb money, less than it cost for one year of Frankie Montas, who just got a two-year deal. Maybe Sugano’s fastball will get tattooed. Maybe command just won’t cut it when he can’t miss bats. But he wouldn’t be the first finesse-based pitcher to succeed in the majors, and his track record suggests that he’s one of the best finesse pitchers in the world.
As is customary for one of my articles about the Orioles, I still don’t think they’ve done enough. We’re halfway through Adley Rutschman’s six years of discounted team control, and the O’s haven’t won a playoff game yet. Their farm system is still ridiculous. Their payroll is comfortably in the bottom half of the majors. Their rotation could use a Burnes replacement, whether someone who is signed in free agency or acquired in trade. Heck, they could at least throw some money at Rutschman or Gunnar Henderson (or Jordan Westburg, or Colton Cowser, or…) for an extension.
But that’s not today’s business. Today’s business is Sugano, and again, I love the deal. I hope he’s throwing darts at the low-and-outside corner as a playoff starter at the end of next season – and even if he isn’t, I think the Orioles were wise to take a risk on him.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
Sugano seems fun, and I’m pro fun (even if I’m a Yankees fan and we generally are more ‘pro be angry at Cashman’)
I did kneejerk wonder why the Yankees, or anybody, didn’t match this deal, forgetting that A) Sugano has to want to sign there, B) the Yankees have a surplus of starting pitching for once and don’t need a Chad innings eater.
By the reports, Sugano was very intrigued by the Orioles’ brass. It’s just that we didn’t hear much about his market until he got signed. Nobody was reported to have met with him.
I do hope the Yankees get Sasaki, though. That would be fun. I miss having Asian stars on the team like Tanaka, Kuroda, and Matsui
I think late-career Mike Mussina is a good comp for Sugano. Mussina was, at that point, also a guy who depended on command and pitch mix to get the most out of things, with his velocity declining to even lower levels than Sugano, and he was able to more than hold his own. He was worth 2.6+ fWAR in each of his five seasons from 35 to 39, with three seasons over 3 and one over 5. Also in the AL East, with much worse team defense behind him than Sugano will get in Baltimore.
Maybe he won’t get to quite that level, but Sugano is a NPB legend for a reason. His command is, truly, Greg Maddux-esque. Not like Kyle Hendricks or every other righty sinkerballer who gets incorrectly comped to Maddux. His ability to just spot pitches in the most uncomfortable spots for hitters is amazing. Even in his prior two down seasons, his ERA was barely 3.40, about the leauge-average for the Central League in ’22 and ’23.
In case that 2.6 BB% stat sent anyone else’s mind wandering down similar corridors to mine:
In MLB history, there have been 23 qualified pitcher seasons with a BB% of 2.6 or lower. Greg Maddux makes an appearance as you might expect (1997, 20 walks among 893 batters faced for a 2.2% rate, and 6 of those were intentional), as does Cliff Lee (2.1% in 2010).
But the lowest rate was Carlos Silva for the Twins in 2005. Facing 811 batters, he issued nine walks (two intentional), for a likely unbreakable record 1.2% BB rate. Even if you add in his 3 HBPs, his 1.5% rate would be clear of second-place finisher Babe Adams, who in 1920 walked 1.7% of the batters he faced.
Unfortunately for Silva in 2005, he also only struck out 9.5% of those batters, so overall he ended up roughly league average in a truly unique way.
Fun! My mind went to another Twin, Phill Hughes, but I had forgotten how weird Silva was as a player. Hughes was much better, as despite walking only 1.9% of batters in his 2014 season, he struck out 21.8%, slightly better than league average of 20.4%. Injuries destroyed him, sadly. But that one year was really cool to watch.
Silva threw a complete game that year with only 74 pitches. I’m not sure if we need a different name that’s more impressive than a Maddux, but he achieved it.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN200505200.shtml
Bruh. His game score was higher than his pitch count. I’ve never seen that before! That’s craziness.
Also man, that box score was a “remember a guy” trip. Lyle Overbay is not a name I expected to think of ever again.
I’d call it a Fattux. A more efficient Maddux from a guy who looked like he ate Greg Maddux.
haha cheap laugh! love it
Yeah I remember seeing Silva’s name at the top of the leaderboard when I was looking up exactly how crazy Hughes was in 2014. With almost no strikeouts or walks I started to wonder if he had mistakenly had some t-ball stats included in his numbers. Just an epically weird year.
Given the new “speed is deadly” MLB report maybe teams should be looking for ways to boost/teach command. Not as easy as teaching to go all out with adequate control/motion but the pitchers might last longer.
They should start looking to knucklers and screwballs again. Figure out how to develop pitchers that can go three times through the order.
Current trends are unsustainable and the alternative is more rule patchwork.
“the pitchers might last longer” Incentives, both for management and the player, do not align with this thought.
Maybe today.
But minimizing injuries to young pitchers or expensive free agents can be a competitive advantage to a team that doesn’t lose a productive starter for a year-plus.
900 innings at a 4 WAR/200 pace over 5 years vs 500 innings at a 5 WAR/200 pace over the same.
After Brandish and Wells went down, the pitching was good but constantly taxing their RP. I like the idea of basically the deal they gave Kyle Gibson to help anchor the floor of the rotation. That 50 percent Zips outcome would be a win.
Also, great article!
One year deals are such low risk, and I always wonder if there’s something to be said for an overseas pitcher’s first year here when nobody has actually stood in a box against him, and has to get all their scouting from 3rd party sources.
But also yeah, “world’s best command” is super fun. I love me a pitcher with seemingly little velocity but an endless array of bendy weirdness. I hope he succeeds.
Comparison to Imanaga as a low-velocity high-command guy? I recognize the handedness favors Imanaga, but I also recall a lot of questions about whether Imanaga could survive in MLB without more velocity.
Outside of the velocity and favoring of command, they’re not much alike. Imanaga threw almost 85% 4-seam/splitter last season. Only his slider, at 7.7% usage, cracked 5% outside of those two.
Sugano, on the other hand, per MLB.com:
4-seam fastball — 26% usage / 92 mph
Cutter — 20% usage / 87 mph
Slider — 20% usage / 82 mph
Splitter — 17% usage / 86 mph
Sinker — 9% usage / 91 mph
Curveball — 8% usage / 77 mph
Gives me more late-career Greinke vibes than anything.
Thanks!
I like Sugano as a “let’s see what happens” guy as you said, just not so much as a “here’s your Corbin Burnes replacement” guy
As an Orioles fan, I could not be happier about this signing. Winning the division requires an abundance of starting pitching, preferably the kind that won’t put runners on-base. Sugano and Eflin both provide that.
“2017 WBC: Sugano played for the Japan national team and started against the United States in the semifinals on March 21, 2017. He pitched six innings, allowing only one unearned run, and struck out six American hitters. ”
Small sample size, but that’s effective work on some good hitters.
It was also eight years ago.
Watching Sugano is going to be a very interesting addition to the usual suspects in the AL East. I have a warm place in my memory bank for Japanese pitchers who can barely touch 90 with their heater. Koji Uehara’s 2013 is so totally unique, and unique is the right word, that it conjures up some of the best remembrances of my Red Sox fandom. Sugano is not going to pitch for the Red Sox but I will be sure to see how he attacks the hitters and whether it is enough to survive at the highest level.