The Giants are one of the teams considering longtime NPB ace Tomoyuki Sugano, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi writes (via X). The 35-year-old is a full free agent and is expected to sign with a Major League club this winter on the heels of 12 outstanding seasons with the baseball world’s other Giants franchise, the 22-time Japan Series champion Yomiuri Giants.
Signing Sugano would be an intriguing move for the San Francisco version of the Giants in Buster Posey’s first offseason as the club’s president of baseball operations. Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, and Kyle Harrison are assured of rotation jobs, Jordan Hicks will be in the mix if the Giants want to use him as a starter again, and a variety of less-experienced younger arms (i.e. Landen Roupp, Hayden Birdsong, Mason Black, Keaton Winn, and top prospect Carson Whisenhunt) are also vying for rotation.
While Sugano would obviously be a rookie in terms of MLB experience, he does bring more overall seasoning than most of San Francisco’s in-house rotation candidates. If the Giants chose to accommodate Sugano by adopting a six-man rotation to emulate the Japanese standard of pitchers starting once per week, such an arrangement might also help manage the innings of the younger pitchers, though Webb or Ray might prefer a more traditional five-man schedule.
Due mostly to his age, MLBTR projected Sugano for a one-year, $12MM contract this winter, though a two-year pact certainly seems feasible. Such a relatively inexpensive deal might be of particular interest to a Giants team that is reportedly planning to reduce spending after going over the luxury tax threshold in 2024.
RosterResource projects San Francisco’s 2025 payroll at just under $155MM at the moment, with a tax number of $182.28MM. That leaves the Giants still with plenty of spending flexibility before they reach last year’s Opening Day payroll of roughly $208MM, as well as the $241MM luxury tax threshold. Since the Giants have been linked to such hitters as Willy Adames, Ha-Seong Kim, and even Juan Soto this offseason, it would be that Posey is planning to make a bigger splash to address the club’s greater need of hitting, and then spend more modestly on pitching help.
This isn’t the first time that the Giants have been linked to Sugano, as they were one of several Major League clubs interested in his services when the Yomiuri Giants posted him during the 2020-21 offseason. Sugano didn’t end up finding an acceptable contract and ended up re-signing with the Yomiuri Giants on a four-year, $40MM deal that included three opt-out clauses. Sugano chose not to trigger any of those opt-outs and instead finished out the contract’s full four-year term.
Sugano has been one of Japan’s best pitchers of the last decade, posting a 2.43 ERA over 12 seasons and 1857 innings. While not a big strikeout pitchers, he has exceptional control, with only a 4.68% walk rate over his entire NPB career. Sugano’s long list of career plaudits includes two Central League MVP Awards, two Sawamura Awards as NPB’s top pitcher, and eight All-Star nods. Even in his age-34 season, Sugano still excelled in 2024, with a 1.67 ERA over 156 2/3 innings.
