{"id":381415,"date":"2026-01-01T12:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T12:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/381415\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T12:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T12:02:08","slug":"phillies-former-no-1-prospect-stays-in-japan-rather-than-return-to-mlb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/381415\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies&#8217; former No. 1 prospect stays in Japan rather than return to MLB"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not that long ago that Spencer Howard was the No. 1 prospect in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/philadelphia-phillies\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Philadelphia Phillies<\/a>&#8216; system.<\/p>\n<p>But the right-handed pitcher never really made it work in MLB, and he&#8217;s sticking in Japan after his first season there.<\/p>\n<p>Howard spent the 2025 season in NPB with the Rakuten Eagles.<\/p>\n<p>He has signed for 2026 with the Yomiuri Giants, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/yakyucosmo\/status\/2006110087702610350?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">according to Yakyu Cosmopolitan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In 2025 with the Eagles, Howard had a 2.22 ERA in 48.2 innings pitched.<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/news\/team-usa-projected-wbc-lineup-bryce-harper-news\/8f6511f6d5033b252b594217\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Team USA&#8217;s projected WBC lineup is incredible<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Howard made his MLB debut in 2020, then was listed as the Phillies&#8217; top prospect by MLB Pipeline heading into 2021.<\/p>\n<p>In that ensuing season, Howard had a 5.72 ERA before being traded to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/texas-rangers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas Rangers<\/a> for Kyle Gibson and Ian Kennedy.<\/p>\n<p>From 2021-23 with the Rangers, Howard pitched in 62.2 innings but had just an 8.37 ERA.<\/p>\n<p>Howard was traded to the Yankees in 2023, and he also pitched for the Giants and Guardians before he headed to Japan.<\/p>\n<p>The big righty has thrown 144 MLB innings and has a 7.00 ERA.<\/p>\n<p>Now 29 years old, Howard may have one more path back to MLB in a year or two if he wants it. For now, he&#8217;s chosen to remain in Japan, just with a new ballclub.<\/p>\n<p>More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s not that long ago that Spencer Howard was the No. 1 prospect in the Philadelphia Phillies&#8216; system.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-381415","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-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381415","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=381415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}