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Yokohama High School right-hander Oda Shoki (a third-year student with a fastball topping out at 157 km/h) announced on the 15th that he will skip the NPB draft entirely and go straight for MLB. His contract is reportedly set to exceed “¥500 million” — far above the cap on NPB signing bonuses — making him the latest in a line of high-schoolers bound directly for the majors, following Morii Shotaro, Sato Gen’ei, and Sasaki Rintaro. Reports also indicate MLB clubs are already circling an Osaka Toin sophomore left-hander, underscoring just how fast top talent is slipping out of Japan’s domestic league. On 5ch, reactions ranged from shock at the sheer size of the deal, to concern over NPB being hollowed out, to a more sober reality check: even for a high-school draftee, it typically takes 5-6 years to become a fixture in the majors.
Right-hander Oda Shoki (third-year student), a 157 km/h flamethrower once seen as a potential No. 1 NPB draft pick, held a press conference at Yokohama High School on the 15th and announced that after graduation he will pursue Major League Baseball. The news has cast a gloomy mood over Japan’s baseball world, as he bypasses NPB entirely to go straight to the majors. What’s more, Oda’s contract is believed to come in at a staggering “over ¥500 million” — far beyond anything NPB’s cap allows — and the crisis of top prospects continuing to leave the country shows no sign of slowing.
The pull of the majors keeps growing stronger by the day. Oda, long rumored to be bound for the Dodgers, has now given his answer: a shot at American baseball.
NPB’s draft meeting is set for the 22nd of this month — the single most important event for the league’s 12 teams as they build and reinforce their rosters. Had Oda signaled he was open to staying in Japan, many teams would have seriously considered taking him with a first-round pick. Instead, the golden-egg prospect chose the majors, leaving NPB scouts letting out a collective, deep sigh.
Source: tokyo-sports.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Until then, he'll have to eat dirt and grind it out
Come on, think it through — there's no way a team treats a player with a $3 million signing bonus like that. Use some common sense.
These days MLB is kind of like SoftBank's "ikusei" (development-contract) policy —
if there's upside, they'll basically pre-buy it for around ¥1 billion
They sign a ton of guys like this and let them battle it out.
It's basically a microcosm of a competitive society — who rises out of the pack.
Not a single player who went to MLB straight out of high school has played in the majors in year one
Even Mike Trout spent year one in the minors, got a brief MLB look in year two, and didn't become a true regular until year three
And even that's considered extraordinarily fast — normally it takes at least 5-6 years
Lamine Yamal got ¥3 billion at 17 though (lol)
Wait, is that guy even Japanese?
Blame the Kintetsu Buffaloes for how badly they treated Nomo back in the day
That's what blew the door wide open to the majors
This was bound to happen sooner or later
Now it'll be interesting to see how many of these guys can actually cut it in the majors
So Suzuki Keishi (former Kintetsu ace turned manager) is the unsung hero behind all this, huh
Since the Heisei era began, only three tall (180cm+) left-handers who came up through NPB have ever racked up 100 career wins: Ishii Kazuhisa, Uchiumi Tetsuya, and Kikuchi Yusei.
There's a 190cm left-hander on the Giants who was Osaka Toin classmates with Neo — I think that guy's going to end up just a slightly better version of him, at best.
I was wondering why they left out Yamamoto Masa(kazu), but then I remembered — he actually flopped, and it was manager Hoshino who basically shipped him off to the Dodgers
Doesn't have to be straight out of high school — college works too
Guys like Sasaki Rintaro are at American colleges,
so they just need to clear the US draft
Even if Oda got taken first round by SoftBank, he could still turn it down and sign with an MLB team instead
Plenty of guys have come back to NPB after failing in MLB
It's like how fighters retire and spend their later years as pro wrestlers
I get wanting to bet it all while you're young
But it still runs through the draft, so he can't just freely sign with whichever team mutually wants him
It's customary for a cut of the signing bonus to go all the way back to his Little League coaches, so the coaches are thrilled
The real issue is things like: if he'd signed with the Seibu Lions, that would've opened up a job-placement slot at Seibu for his high school — and now that's gone
After that, I think everyone would be happier if NPB just became an MLB Double-A or Triple-A affiliate
The sport and the players should come first — not organizations like NPB or the teams
People who say "you owe the Japanese team that took care of you, so you should repay them" — would they really not switch jobs if their pay tripled and the work environment got better too?
If a team can't pay players what they're worth, it's fine if it goes under
The NPB players' union is against even automatic free agency though…
"Paying it back" isn't just about the ¥100-150 million signing bonus either
Job placement for people from his old school, paying off relatives' debts, funding family businesses, job placement for relatives…
There's an insane amount of money moving around behind the scenes
it's basically being treated like an independent league at this point
Even if attendance itself keeps going up, pro baseball just doesn't have the name recognition with the general public that it used to
Even if people say "the National Stadium was packed today,"
it's like the J.League — full stadiums but without a single famous player
That's just entertainment options diversifying, I guess
If you could get ¥500 million and sign with whatever team you wanted, everyone would go
The minors in America have a better environment anyway, and if he makes the majors in his early 20s, that's a lifetime-earnings swing of over ¥10 billion
Go ahead, be my guest
But just so you know, if he fails, NPB won't take him back. That's all
Oda was the one who rejected NPB first,
so it only seems natural that NPB would reject him right back,
but for some reason, saying this always gets you criticized
Why would they reject him though?
Even if he fails in America, if NPB teams judge he'd still be useful, why not just take him back?
You don't get how narrow-minded that attitude is.
If it doesn't work out in America, he can just come try hard in Japan instead.
Oda isn't going to college though — he's going straight for MLB
Once he's done, he can just head straight back to Japan, become a landlord, live off passive income, and be set for life
Baseball? Who cares at that point
¥200-300 million won't buy you much more than a student rental building at today's prices
Even if they spend hundreds of millions of yen and it falls through, it's no big deal for them
If it's the Dodgers, that money originally came from Japanese fans anyway
If they can produce the next star and keep the cash flowing in, lucky them
To begin with, there's a "number one of the class" every single year among high schoolers
Baseball has hit generations and miss generations
Just because someone shined at Koshien doesn't mean they'll shine in the pros —
there are a ton of past examples proving those two things aren't the same
Ending up tangled up with organized crime (hansha) is the real thorny road in life — and that happens often enough
Year 4 in MLB: salary arbitration rights
Year 6 in MLB: free agency eligibility
If a high school draftee gets called up in just 4 years, that's a miracle
Yeah, that's about right. Free agency takes 10 years minimum, so he'd be 28
Fastest case: called up in 4 years, finally lands a big contract in year 6
People said the same thing about Roki (Sasaki) — makes you wonder if he got played by Dentsu
Hard to believe he didn't even know about the under-25 signing rule
When you think about it that way,
going through NPB first and heading over at 25 is actually the smarter move
Background and Key Points of This Story
Under NPB’s draft system, signing bonuses effectively have a cap (a rough guideline of ¥100 million upfront plus ¥50 million in incentives), whereas MLB works through international amateur signing-bonus pools, which lets clubs offer top prospects deals well above that ceiling. That’s the backdrop to the “over ¥500 million” reports. At the same time, very few high-school draftees have gone on to establish themselves in the majors — as the thread noted with Mike Trout, not one has played in MLB in year one, and most spend 5-6 years in the minors as a matter of course. Reaching free agency takes even longer, typically around 10 years at the very fastest — a fact that’s easy to overlook. The thread split between those taking a favorable view of the contract size and Oda’s own choice, and those worried about the ongoing drain and hollowing-out of NPB talent that’s continued since Nomo’s era — though both sides agreed on just how tough the high-school-to-majors path really is. It’s also worth noting that the reported figure likely represents a total including incentives, not a straight signing bonus.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt/summary of the 5ch (Geisports Sokuho+) thread “Oda Shoki’s “¥500 Million” Megadeal? Morii Shotaro, Sato Gen’ei, Sasaki Rintaro… The Unstoppable MLB Exodus, with an Osaka Toin Sophomore Lefty Reportedly Already in Clubs’ Sights.”
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