{"id":376030,"date":"2025-12-29T22:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T22:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/376030\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T22:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T22:48:08","slug":"kazuma-okamoto-travels-to-u-s-for-in-person-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/376030\/","title":{"rendered":"Kazuma Okamoto Travels To U.S. For In-Person Meetings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Star Nippon Professional Baseball third baseman Kazuma Okamoto<\/a> has traveled to the United States for a series of in-person meetings as he enters the final stretch of his 45-day posting window, per a report from Yahoo Japan<\/a> (hat tip to Yakyu Cosmopolitan<\/a>). Okamoto and agent Scott Boras are narrowing the field of interested clubs as Okamoto nears his early-January deadline for an agreement.<\/p>\n

To this point, each of the Blue Jays, Pirates, Red Sox, Padres and Angels have been prominently linked to Okamoto, who\u2019ll turn 30 next June. The longtime Yomiuri Giants star, who\u2019d been their team captain prior to being posted, is one of the most consistent sluggers in Japan. He\u2019s a career .277\/.361\/.522 hitter in NPB who has reached 30 home runs in all but two of his 11 seasons. That includes 2025, when injuries limited him to 69 games, and 2024, when he \u201conly\u201d hit 27 homers in 143 games.<\/p>\n

However, despite hitting a career-low 15 home runs this past season due to an elbow injury, Okamoto had the best production of his excellent NPB tenure on a rate basis. In 293 trips to the batter\u2019s box, he slashed .327\/.416\/.598 with a robust 11.3% walk rate that matched his minuscule 11.3% strikeout rate. His 24.3% line-drive rate from this past season was a career-high, and Okamoto\u2019s .271 ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average) was the second-best mark of his career, trailing only his 41-homer season from 2023.<\/p>\n

Like countryman Munetaka Murakami<\/a>, Okamoto is a corner infielder whose glovework concerns big league teams. He\u2019s considered a better defender at third base than Murakami but is still viewed by many clubs as a player who\u2019ll likely spend most (if not all) of his first MLB contract as a first baseman and\/or designated hitter. Those defensive concerns contributed significantly to Murakami settling for a two-year deal that fell well short of industry expectations. Defensive concerns surrounding Okamoto aren\u2019t as prominent, nor does he have the alarming swing-and-miss profile that\u00a0 also contributed to the bearish market for Murakami. However, Okamoto is four years older. Next year being his age-30 season will likely limit the length of his forthcoming contract (though perhaps not to the same extent as Murakami).<\/p>\n

Of the teams connected to Okamoto thus far, there\u2019s no clear favorite. The Blue Jays presumably still have Bo Bichette<\/a> ahead of him on their wishlist \u2014 possibly Alex Bregman<\/a> as well. Boston has also been pursuing both Bregman and Bichette (likely in that order). The Pirates have already acquired one first base option, signing Ryan O\u2019Hearn<\/a>, and have another in Spencer Horwitz<\/a>. If they were to make a real push for Okamoto, they\u2019d need to be confident in his ability to play third base. The Angels have a clearer path to playing time at the infield corners (particularly third base). The Padres won\u2019t be displacing Manny Machado<\/a> at third base, so Okamoto would need to play first base, with Jake Cronenworth<\/a> manning second base and KBO acquisition Sung Mun Song<\/a> shifting to the outfield or a utility role.<\/p>\n

Of course, it remains perfectly plausible that other, yet-unidentified clubs are in the bidding. The A\u2019s, Mariners, Twins, Rangers, D-backs, Marlins, Mets, Cubs and Nationals all have varying levels of questions at the infield corners. Not all of those teams have significant money to spend this winter \u2014 the Rangers, Twins and D-backs are all known to be reducing payroll relative to recent seasons \u2014 but any of the bunch could get creative with backloaded contract structures and\/or shed payroll by another means to make room if Okamoto is deemed a sufficient upgrade. That\u2019s a largely speculative list, to be clear, but given Okamoto\u2019s track record in NPB, it\u2019d be a surprise if \u201conly\u201d five MLB\u2019s 30 teams had any interest in signing him.<\/p>\n

It bears noting that while Okamoto was originally set to be posted on Nov. 19, MLBTR has confirmed that his posting didn\u2019t become official until Nov. 21. That pushes his window to sign a contract with a big league club from the original Jan. 2 to Jan. 4. Whichever club signs him will owe the Giants a posting\/release fee equal to 20% of the contract\u2019s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter. That fee comes on top of the value of the contract itself. Subsequent earnings (club\/player options, performance incentives, award bonuses, etc.) fall under that umbrella as well, once they\u2019re officially reached.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Star Nippon Professional Baseball third baseman Kazuma Okamoto has traveled to the United States for a series of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,133041,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-376030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-kazuma-okamoto","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}