In an offseason that appears to be relatively rich in starting pitchers available in free agency, there will be less attention on aging Japanese righthander Tomoyuki Sugano than there would have been if he had come over two or three years ago. However, the 35-year-old Sugano will likely sign with an MLB team this year after a decade and transition as one of the top starters in the NPB. Because he waited so long to cross the Pacific this way, he will be free of the postal system and allowed to sign with a team for nothing more than cash.

Twitter user @bouno05, a top-level Japanese sabermetrician, has created an app that allows visitors to easily view summaries of throwers’ skills and specific data about their arsenals, using NPB data. It’s a great resource, and the only Japanese you need to decipher to use it is the player’s name kanji characters. The rest is in English, although (blame George Washington) you still have to do a small translation step to use it comfortably: all speed measurements given are in kilometers per hour.

This is a great resource for us American fans hoping for insight into Japanese pitchers who could be coming to the United States for a number of reasons. First, it’s much easier to understand how a pitcher’s stuff might transfer between these two different leagues by studying their stuff directly, rather than watching inaccurate scouting reports, video narrated in a language we don’t understand, and superficial statistics compiled from very different hitters than the ones these guys will face Stateside. (In general, we should make a broader effort to learn Japanese and Spanish; they are the languages ​​of baseball as much as English. For now, though, my Spanish lags far behind my English, and my Japanese is even much worse than my Spanish, so it’s extremely helpful to have a tool that meets me way more than halfway.)

Second, however, it is educational in the way it shows us the changes a pitcher who has already moved from NPB to MLB has made in the process. For example, here is Shota Imanaga’s rendering from the app for his time at NPB in 2023:

This data set looks at Imanaga’s formidable splitter as a changeup, but otherwise this is easy to read and understand – and it tells us some unexpected things about Imanaga compared to his rookie campaign with the Cubs. When he faced American hitters, Imanaga essentially lived as a two-pitch pitcher for a long time, but this shows that he varied his pitch mix considerably more than that in the NPB, as he later did in his first season with the Cubs started to do. .

Imanaga threw his splitter far less against lefties in his final season in Japan than he did in 2024 for the Cubs. It is not surprising in itself that he used such an unusual offer more often against a new and unknown group of opponents, but it confirms the feeling you got as you watched: that he adapted enormously along the way, and that was the source of both some of his struggles as a big part of his success.

Having Imanaga’s pitch mix details from Japan as a template (with a year’s worth of MLB data to help us contextualize and translate that information) makes it easier to evaluate Sugano, even though the latter is four years older than Imanaga was when he started his made the switch. league and even though he throws right-handed. Here is Sugano’s data for 2024.

A number of things immediately stand out. Sugano’s fastball averages about 90 miles per hour, which is disappointing, and it’s pretty clear that it doesn’t have the same special characteristics as Imanaga’s – at least not the way he threw it this year. His Stuff+ numbers are, on balance, slightly less impressive than Imanaga’s, because those numbers only compare pitchers to their NPB cohort. As it stands, Sugano’s fastball is well below MLB standard, and the concern would be that he would be hit very, very hard.

However, take a look at all his other offerings. He’ll likely streamline his arsenal a bit for each hitter’s skill as he moves on to a new set of opponents, much like Imanaga did, and he’ll have a wide selection of weapons to choose from. Also notice those little heat maps that indicate the location on his stuff. These brilliantly explain how Sugano managed to walk 16 batters and allow just six home runs in 156 innings this year. Can he repeat that against MLB hitters? No. But his control is so good that he can almost certainly surpass his raw numbers.

Whichever team signs Sugano, the 35-year-old will also experience some changes in approach late in his career that could help his arsenal play. Look where he threw his fastballs to right-handed hitters last year. It puts its cutter and slider there nicely, but it’s no wonder he gets poor Stuff+ returns and low whiff rates when he tries to do the old 90s thing of dotting the outside corner at the knees as often as possible. If he’s open to it, an MLB club will let him throw that heater to the top third of the zone, and his strikeout rate will increase, even if he gives up a few home runs in the process.

Imanaga’s success is just the latest in a line of veteran Japanese pitchers who do very well when they come to the United States, and it’s proof that the pitcher with control over the power can carry his success over to this side of the ocean . Sugano doesn’t project as a top prospect, and he figures to be in line for a shorter deal than those signed by Imanaga and Kodai Senga in recent years, but he has real upside as an underrated mid-rotation starter. He quickly looks a lot like Javier Assad, but with an extra level of command. That’s a very, very good pitcher.

With Seiya Suzuki and Imanaga already in the ranks, the Cubs have another reason to seriously consider signing Sugano, as long as his price tag remains reasonable. They won’t surpass the Dodgers as the MLB team of the moment in Japan, but there’s no reason why they can’t firmly and semi-permanently establish themselves as the secondary club of Japanese MLB fans in that country. If Imanaga and Sugano could start opposite Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani when the Cubs and Dodgers open in Tokyo next season, it could take an incredible moment for the league and its international fan base to a new level.

In a perfect world, the Cubs could add two starters this winter: one who could fit in at or near the front of their rotation, and one who could slide to the back. Sugano profiles better as the latter, but signing him could also make it easier to acquire the former. We can talk more about why that might be later this week. For now, the main takeaway is that specific data on Sugano’s stuff paints a picture of him as a very good command artist, albeit without as clear a niche in the MLB as Imanaga had. If he can adapt as well as Imanaga did this season, he could be extremely valuable – and a rare steal.