Washington (United States) (AFP) – Shohei Ohtani’s success in leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to back-to-back World Series titles has Major League Baseball rivals hoping for similar results with Japanese talent. The Dodgers, who also boast Japanese pitcher and World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto, beat the Toronto Blue Jays in a seventh-game thriller last November to defend their title. That helped inspire the Canadian club to sign a four-year deal worth $60 million with infielder Kazuma Okamoto, a former Tokyo Yomiuri Giants slugger who helped Japan win the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
“We definitely got better today,” Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins said Tuesday at Okamoto’s unveiling. “Another significant step for this organization.” Okamoto said he liked the support he saw from Jays fans while watching the World Series. “I always wanted to play in MLB,” Okamoto said through a translator. “One of my major missions is to bring a World Series and a championship to the Blue Jays. I was very impressed by the play but more so by the fans, how they cheered loudly and how there’s so much love for the Blue Jays.”
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Hours earlier, the Houston Astros introduced 27-year-old Japanese pitcher Tatsuya Imai, who signed a three-year deal with the MLB squad after a three-time All-Star career for the Saitama Seibu Lions. “What’s up, H-town,” Imai said. “I’m ready to chase a world championship with you. I had the privilege to have a couple other offers on the table, but I truly believe here in Houston with the Astros I might be able to seriously take a shot at the World Series.”
Astros manager Joe Espada was overjoyed, saying, “I’m super fired up. He’s a competitor who is here to win. He has grit and toughness and I’m just excited to have him on board.” The Astros, who reached the playoffs for eight consecutive seasons before missing out in 2025, made Imai their first free agent from Japan and only the team’s fourth Japanese player. “You hope you can pick up some more talent from there,” Astros owner Jim Crane said. “There’s definitely MLB talent and they’re developing the players.”
Crane visited Japan last year and decided to boost Houston’s Pacific Rim presence with scouts in Tokyo, Taiwan, and South Korea. “It did wake my eyes up,” Crane said. “I knew we weren’t getting the job done in recognizing talent and getting in front of it, so we went all in. Seeing Ohtani’s heroics for the Dodgers made it an easy decision.”
“The Dodgers kind of led the way there,” Crane said. “We’ll be moving pretty fast in Asia and continue to focus on that and evaluate all the talent over there so we can hopefully get some more over here to play and deepen the team. You can really see the Asian market, the players coming out of there are really equivalent or better than some of the guys we have here. It was kind of untapped until we had the Ohtani effect…but we’ll be laser-focused on it moving forward.”
© 2024 AFP
