Toronto Fortifies Lineup With Kazuma Okamoto Signing
On Saturday, the eve of his posting window’s closure, 29-year-old Japanese third baseman Kazuma Okamoto agreed to a four-year, $60 million contract with the reigning American League champion Toronto Blue Jays. Okamoto, who made his NPB debut as a teenager, is a career .277/.361/.521 hitter with Tokyo’s Yomiuri Giants. He had a power-hitting breakout in 2018, his age-22 campaign, beginning a six-year streak in which he hit 30 or more annual home runs, including a 2023 season in which he cracked 41 of them. He ranks second in all of NPB with 214 homers since 2019, our first year of NPB data tracking here at FanGraphs. During his 2025 platform year, Okamoto posted an incredible .327/.416/.598 line and career-best 11% strikeout rate, albeit in only 77 games because he sprained his left elbow in an on-field collision that caused him to miss roughly half the season.
Dangerous from top to bottom, lineup depth was the bedrock of a Toronto team that came within inches of winning a World Series, and Okamoto’s balanced contact/power hitting style fits in with the Blue Jays’ baton-passing attack. Pre-existing defensive versatility on their roster — namely, incumbent second baseman Andrés Giménez’s ability to play shortstop — gave them the flexibility to pursue players of virtually any position as a means of replacing free agent shortstop Bo Bichette.
Okamoto’s deal is slightly backloaded; he’s getting a $5 million signing bonus and has a $7 million salary in 2026, then makes $16 million per season in each of the final three years. The Blue Jays also paid a posting fee of $10.875 million to Yomiuri, making their total outlay $70.875 million. That amount is right in line with the expert and crowd sourcing estimates of 3-4 years and $15-18 million AAV, as published in Ben Clemens’ Top 50 Free Agents list, on which Okamoto ranked 21st. My evaluation of Okamoto was a little weightier; I think he’s going to hit (more on that in a moment) and produce in the range of 2.0-2.5 WAR per year, player quality befitting a $20-25 million AAV.
Despite the structure of the contract, it’s the $15 million average annual value of the deal that informs Toronto’s payroll calculation as it pertains to the luxury tax. Per RosterResource, the Blue Jays 2026 projected luxury tax payroll is now $308 million, second highest in all of baseball and in excess of the final luxury tax threshold. This has been an all-in 12-month period for the Blue Jays, during which they’ve dished out multiple long-term, sometimes nine-figure, contracts headlined by Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s $500 million extension in April. The 2026 season will be Toronto’s second consecutive year in excess of the luxury tax threshold, but with several high-dollar contracts expiring after the season, the team’s 2027 commitments will dip way down to an estimated $218 million, low enough to reset its luxury tax penalty percentage if anything remotely close to the current CBA’s structure is retained in 2027 and beyond.
Okamoto made stark contact improvements during the last couple of years, generating the two lowest strikeout rates of his career in 2024 (15.9%) and 2025 (11.3%), while also improving his splits against harder fastballs; he’s had an 89% contact rate against all fastballs and an 87% contact rate against heaters 94 mph and above across the last three seasons. That 94-plus mph fastball split is only derived from a 350-pitch sample during that three-year span, and there’s inherent volatility in projecting how Japanese hitters will adjust to MLB pitching because they’re underexposed to premium velocity, but in Okamoto’s case at least, the data we have is positive and corroborates the visual evaluation of his talent. Early in his career, he was crushing a lot of hanging breaking balls, but of late he’s been more often on time to pull fastballs with power, and his spray chart includes a ton of contact straight down the left field line, which is a player characteristic the Blue Jays seem to target.
Because Okamoto is so geared to pull, he does make some concessions against well-located secondary pitches away from him, though none of his splits against any particular pitch type are especially scary. He tracks pitches well, moves the barrel around the zone (especially the upper half), and is a pretty stable bat-to-ball “prospect” for an NPB player. He lacks the light-tower power of a superstar corner infielder, but he has enough to be dangerous, and I think he’ll hit enough to profile as an average regular, especially at third base.
Okamoto has spent the majority of his career playing third base, with some first base and left field mixed in. The way the dominoes fall for the Blue Jays’ defensive alignment seems pretty clear; with Guerrero entrenched at first base, Okamoto is going to spend most of his time at third. Okamoto can show you nimble lower body stability and has feel for bouncing off the dirt and spinning into accurate throws, but he lacks range and struggles making plays to his glove side. There are many similar major league third basemen (Max Muncy comes to mind) who are flawed, but playable. Okamoto’s presence will probably force Addison Barger to spend more time in the outfield, and Ernie Clement (also a flawed defender, with an odd throwing stroke and sketchy accuracy) to mostly slide to second base. With injured/aging George Springer and Anthony Santander currently occupying projected DH and outfield spots in Toronto’s starting lineup, it’s not crazy to think Okamoto might also need to stand in left field on occasion just to give the older guys a breather. There are going to be lots of different ways to get his bat into the lineup by playing matchups at the corner positions the way manager John Schneider did successfully throughout 2025 with Barger, Clement, and Davis Schneider, among others. Overall, I expect Okamoto to perform like a top 12-15 player at his position, hit something like .250 with 20 or so annual bombs while playing below average defense, albeit at a couple different spots that allows Toronto to field its best overall lineup on any given day.
Eric Longenhagen is from Catasauqua, PA and currently lives in Tempe, AZ. He spent four years working for the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, two with Baseball Info Solutions and two contributing to prospect coverage at ESPN.com. Previous work can also be found at Sports On Earth, CrashburnAlley and Prospect Insider.
good for the blue jays spending and trying to make the most of their roster. i have no idea why the angels, who desperately need a weighty 3B bat, shirked away from spending on Okamoto, and now i am very scared what harebrained thing they will do for 3B
Has it been reported that the Angels weren’t in on Okamoto? I thought they were? Also if they were why would he wanna go to the island of misfit toys over a contender?
To your second question the answer is always simply money. But it sounds like it wasn’t there.
They were in on Okamoto. Maybe they low balled him, but he probably just preferred to play for a team that was within an inch of winning it all.
yes my point is – why did they lowball him. very disappointing as an angels fan. you can be one of the worst teams in the league and go around lowballing needs
The Angels are one of the worst teams in baseball. They should be doing a total rebuild.
The Rockies exist
The existence of the Rockies doesn’t preclude the Angels from being ass
It takes two to tango. Why would anybody want to play for the Angels if the money is similar?
What’s Anthony Rendon up to these days?
I’m just very hesitant about Bo Bichette despite his relativity young age. This signing makes it seem unlikely that they will re-sign him but they seem willing to spend far more than I thought they would. They have been aggressive after striking out in their pursuit of a superstar.
does Vladdy not qualify as a superstar?
He is on reputation. Whether he is on production depends heavily on if you view his true talent closer to 2021/2024 or the rest of his career
Free agent superstar?
He was already on the team, and is inconsistent. He’s only produced two seasons that you could call superstar level production,. He obviously caught fire in the post season this year but before that his season was merely good rather than great with just 23 hr. I don’t know why his power seems to vanish at times and he’s one of the worst fielders in the league. His contact is an overpay similar to Rafael Dever’s though Vlad Jr peak seasons are much higher his valleys are lower.
I would guess they would be more in on Tucker at this point than Bichette. This team is awfully scary from the right side of the plate and has been for years. Against lefties it’s a bit more hit or miss.
It’s not quite as bad as extreme as it used to be because Addison Barger and Daulton Varsho are there now, but they were definitely hoping that Santander would give them a bit more balance. They could still use that. This team is going to murder lefties with Vlad Jr, Springer, Clement (at least if last year is any guide), and now Okamoto. But they had to rely on some massive reverse splits from Springer last year and neutral splits from Bichette and Kirk against right handed pitchers.
That said, the Blue Jays have enough trouble getting top tier players to take their money, and they seemed to like Bichette. So unless he wants a change of scenery, I’d have to imagine they would welcome him back on something like the QO with some sweeteners if he’s stuck without a team in a month. I just have to believe someone will sweep in and get him for something bigger.
The comment about Clement caught me off guard. You called him a flawed defender, but I would argue he is one of the top defensive infielders in the league. His throws may be weird but I would argue he has phenomenal range and more than enough accuracy.
He was +9 and +11 DRS the past 2 years at 3B with 600-660 innings a season and +10 DRS in 423 innings at 2B.
plus double gg nominations
🤦♂️ GG has nothing to do with his actual ability to demonstrably play quantifiably good defense. It’s a media-driven award.
Gold glove is 75% managers and coaches vote and 25% Saber defensive index rating so some of it is based off of defensive metrics and none of it is media votes.
This is the difference between scout-brain and metric-brain. The metrics see someone where his range more than makes up for his arm issues, or where the issues weren’t big enough last year. The scout sees this and goes “that’s going to be a problem going forward” in isolation of the range.
If I were the Blue Jays I would definitely prefer Clement at second base because of the arm stuff. But I also have a strong bias towards a guy with a cannon at third base because it’s much more aesthetically pleasing. I don’t think Okamoto qualifies as having a cannon at third either, what I really want is to see Barger there. But I guess we can’t have everything we want.
It happens less from RF but Barger’s throws from the OF are incredibly fun so at least there is still that
I am a huge fan of Addison Barger. Specifically his arm. There aren’t that many players where I get really excited when the ball goes right to them.
It isn’t even scout brain. His throws from 3B are accurate and have been for 2 years. The notes aren’t reflective of his performance.
He’s awesome at 2nd or 3rd. Prefer him at 2B cause he’d make a bigger impact.
If Clement isn’t at 3B then Barger is great, better than he is at RF.
Think the bigger issue is the 25th percentile arm strength that was 38th of 45 players with min. 50 throws from 3rd base. He won’t kill you there but it’s definitely someone you’d prefer to play a 2B to minimize the impact of the weak arm
Last seasons top 3rd basemen in OOA and their arm strength percentile
Arm strength can help but getting to the ball and unloading on target can be more valuable than pure arm strength.
Hayes is the runaway leader in OOA at 3rd the last 4 seasons with 63 OOA to 2nd places 35 and his arm strength those 4 seasons has never ranked higher than the 29th percentile.
Very interesting, thanks for the research.
I have absolutely no way of verifying whether they are accurate without watching his throws to first from third with this in mind. I’ve watched a fair number of Blue Jays games but it’s not something I’ve paid any attention to. So I really can’t say whether Eric is right or not.
In the absence of that, I’m relying on metrics, and there isn’t anything that would really capture that. Throwing errors would capture some of it, but not all.
But even if I did have a metric that perfectly captures arm accuracy performance, I wouldn’t be able to figure out Eric’s complaint without looking at it. Eric thinks there is a mechanical problem that will make them not accurate in the future. That’s basically the reason we still have scouts, to figure out if there’s something mechanical not being captured by the metric that would portend a change in the outcome.
Could be some old scouting notes still sticking around because in the minors Clement did have some throwing issues but that hasn’t really been an issue since 2021
I’m very interested to see how Okamoto does at third, as I thought of him more as a first baseman in the majors.
So I guess we’ll figure out if Okamoto can actually play an MLB-quality a third base or not. Eric was real skeptical of that, and you’d think the Blue Jays would value their defense enough to not put him there. But he’s probably not going to be worse at third than Bichette was at shortstop, so they might be in better shape defensively anyway. Or they have evaluated Okamoto better than Eric, like on the same level as Barger.
I’ve long thought that the reluctance to put Gimenez back at shortstop was weird. Cleveland kept running out inferior shortstops to Gimenez for a while, and then Gimenez was also way better than Bichette out there.
The ideal situation for them would be to have a second baseman or shortstop who at the minimum can field the position competently and hit left handed pitching. That would allow them to sit Gimenez against left-handed pitching (where he has been almost unplayable since he joined the Blue Jays). As it stands right now the only guy who fits that definition is Clement, who is also useful as a multi-positional backup and (if he subbed in for Gimenez) would leave second base open. For that reason I wouldn’t completely rule them out for bringing back Bichette.
I don’t think Okamoto at third base should affect that one way or the other. I would have rather just signed a left handed corner outfielder and let Barger take over third base full time. But they must like Okamoto’s bat and figured the defense is okay in one way or another. Now it seems like the way to go would be to get someone for the middle infield so they don’t have to play Gimenez against lefties. They could still sign Kyle Tucker or Bellinger or something, and eat Santander’s deal or trade Barger, but they would have to be a huge upgrade over what they have currently for another outfielder to make sense.
I am assuming the Jays are more in line with BAs viewing of his defense at 3rd, BA’s scouting report lists Okamoto as an above average defender at 3rd and ++ defender at 1st.
I am hoping for a steady fielder at 3rd with a bit below average range who ends up close to average overall because he makes most of the plays he gets to
I think it was pretty clear that the league thinks his bat would profile a lot better at third than at first. Of the teams known to be interested in him the only one where he definitely would be a first baseman is the Padres. Everyone else has a solution at first, even if it’s not a perfect one.
Whether that is wishful thinking or not, I guess we will find out!
If I’m the Mariners I sure would have preferred Okamoto + Helsley or Okamoto + HaSeong Kim instead of only Josh Naylor. Could have also saved 4-12M in the process.
We’ll stick with Plan A, for a variety of reasons. Okamoto + HaSeong will be $32m this year, so not sure how this maths…
I was just looking at total dollars guaranteed since teams can front-load / back-load / defer salary pretty easily and I can’t keep up those details for each signing.
You think Okamoto is going to hit at the same level as Naylor? Or you’d just rather spread around the value to two different places?
I’m pretty sure Helsley wouldn’t be available though, he wants to reestablish his closer bona fides and the Mariners have a pretty good closer.
Both – i do believe Okamoto will hit similar to Naylor and i’d always rather spread my bets unless you are talking about a true top 20 MLB talent. Also get the benefit of some position flexibility with Okamoto.
I think GMs sometimes fall in love with the red or blue Toyota and think they must have it, when you could get a white/black/gray Toyota that’s basically the same for less. Silly analogy but basically just accumulate talent as cheaply and efficiently as possible while acknowledging there are error bars your exact projection of guys is not perfect.
I agree with the sentiments, but mainly because I see Okamoto and Naylor as pretty similar in overall value, plus Okamoto can play more than 1B. I’m not sure about the salary numbers. But it’s hindsight. I don’t blame them for signing Naylor early.
In any case, hitting in Seattle is hard. If you find a guy who can do it without making them crazy, lock them up.
Put me down as someone extremely skeptical of Okamoto’s hitting profile working in Seattle
I understand it, but basically no one thought Murakami would get less. Pretty close on an annual basis too.
The Murakami projections never really made sense though given how much has to right for him to even be a 2 win players as a 1B/DH with a K% that’s likely going to start with a 3.
It takes considerably less projection to see Okomoto giving you 2 wins, conceivably more if he can play a close to average 3B
Maybe but Murakami might have the better shot at 4-5 WAR than Okamoto. Jays are good enough that 2-3 WAR is important, but the Reds, Marlins, Rays and Pirates needed the chance at 4-5 WAR.
Excellent point. The Jays, as a contender, need high floors at all positions with a few having high ceilings (see Vlad) to help reach the WS again. The Reds/Marlins/ChiSox/etc. need to take risks. They can risk a guy flopping to have a shot at a 5 WAR player. Murakami has that 80 power which will help drive viewers to TV’s and fans to the stadium, should get more news coverage too if he hits a few ‘WOW’ bombs (500′ home run, 3 HR game) even if it is balanced by a lot of 0-4’s with 4 K’s and errors in the field. The Jays (and other contenders) can’t afford that. Back in 2010 the Jays took a chance on Jose Bautista and it paid off in ‘wow’ territory, then committed to him and that paid off too. At the same time they took chances on others who flopped (Travis Snider got opportunity but flopped big time as one example, they couldn’t get free agents to sign easily then so it was in house options getting shots to fail and waiver wire guys).
We need a WOW bomb metric now
I guess I just don’t see a realistic outcome where Murakami is a 5 win player. He “could” manage to somehow make an equal amount of contact against MLB pitching as he did against NPB and be Schwarber, but I don’t consider that a reasonable outcome
I would also argue that Okomoto’s path to 4 wins is substantially easier if he’s an average defender and a better than expected hitter in the 130ish wRC+ range. Murakami’s path is to be like a 160 wRC+ 1B with a 25% K rate, which seems substantially less likely
I don’t have a clue whether Murakami will hit in the majors but he is definitely a case where if he makes enough contact he is going to hit a ton of homers. Ryan Howard and Chris Davis-level power. That’s his pathway.
No player has a good chance of being a 5-win player. It’s possible, but the chance of him being unplayable is huge. I think it’s plausible he could be both at different times.
Murakami is extremely high variance. A 160 wRC+ at 1st is basically Vlad Jr’s peak seasons and that’s between a 5-6 WAR season thought I’d expect Murakami to be better than Vlad’s at the position. He’s extremely high variance with a really weird profile because he’s made more contract and struck out less in the past.
Murakami and Ohtani had extremely similar NPB numbers in chase rate and contact rate. Ohtani’s contact rate actually improved after moving to MLB. Obviously Ohtani is a unicorn, but Murakami is also viewed by NPB fans as the best hitter to come out of that league in a long time. I’m a little perplexed at just how common the narrative has become that Murakami won’t hit in MLB.
To be fair the narrative was the same for Ohtani where a lot of people expected him to fail as a hitter and be only pitcher fairly soon after transitioning to MLB.
It is pretty hard to predict MLB success for someone with those contact rates .
Tsustsugo struggled against velocity during his time in NPB and his transition to MLB was pretty rough.
I don’t recall that being the narrative. Everyone agreed that he was a bigger prospect as a pitcher, but FanGraphs projected him to be worth an additional one to two wins even as a part-time DH.
His prospect report from Fangraphs after signing said there was concerns he would make enough contact to stay a two way player.
Keith Law said his swing was long and he didn’t think he would be able to hit MLB fastballs.
There was even a yahoo sports article from Jeff Passan a couple weeks into his first spring training with some famous quotes
“he needs at least 500 plate appearances of seasoning in the minor leagues to give him a chance at becoming a productive major league hitter”
And the most famous quote from that article
“He’s basically like a high school hitter because he’s never seen a good curveball,” the scout said. “He’s seen fastballs and changeups. And you’re asking a high school hitter to jump to the major leagues?”
Eric said that Ohtani had contact issues. He didn’t say that Ohtani would “fail as a hitter.”
Arguing semantics but I read this as there being a real risk he would fail as a hitter.
He’s got an expansive approach, however, and some length in his swing. As a result, Ohtani struck out at a 27% clip in Japan. Major-league strikeout rates are on the rise but still average just 21%, and pitching in MLB is better than in NPB. The Angels have talked publicly about using Ohtani as a DH, and it’s possible he gets to enough of his raw power in games to make it worthwhile, but there’s real risk that his bat-to-ball skills just aren’t good enough for that.
And again Ohtani was younger and far more athletic than Murakami so I don’t think it is out of line to have major concerns about Murakami making enough contact to be successful in MLB.
His top of the scale power gives him a better chance than most because when he makes contact it is very likely to be more valuable than an average hitter but he will still need to make enough contact to be valuable enough as a 1B or DH only hitter.
Okamoto could end up in LF. They could theoretically sign Bichette and leave Clement at 3B, Barger in RF.