Play-by-play data prior to 2002 was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted (The recent example of Yasmany Tomas comes to mind.). Kikuchi is all but guaranteed to appear in the States by 2019. for five innings. Besides baseball writing, he is also passionate about photojournalism and radio broadcasting. An international scout has told me that Na doesn’t have the quick step to start tracking fly balls on contact. So, here, I present a list — accompanied by scouting reports — of six prospects playing in Asia. However, there’s no doubt that the 24-year-old is talented. Na is eligible to be posted by the Dinos after the 2019 season. In 2017, at only 30 years old, he set the Asian league records for career HBPs by surpassing 197. 3 starter. There have been many instances where a highly touted amateur with raw power did not translate their overall potential as smoothly as front offices had hoped. All minor league baseball data provided by Major League Baseball Advanced Media While Kikuchi has been above league average up to and including 2016, he truly broke out in 2017, recording a 1.97 ERA while striking out career-high 217 in 187.2 inning. Choi also has a dubious distinction for an unusually high amount of hit-by-pitches. And that’s me quoting me! This is not only one of the final installments of Prospect Week 2018, but also Sung Min Kim’s first piece as part of his February residency at FanGraphs. All Win Expectancy, Leverage Index, Run Expectancy, and Fans Scouting Report data licenced from TangoTiger.com. as distributed by STATS. All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location, There are clear major-league talents on the east side of the globe, and some of them — mostly the star-level types in each respective league — have decided to forego the comfort of their domestic leagues to challenge themselves in a whole new culture. Website admin will know that you reported it. You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Becomes a free agent entering the 2022 season, after the conclusion of the 2021 season. Any hoo! There are three popular leagues in East Asia: Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) based in Japan, Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) based in Korea, and the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) based in Taiwan. All Win Expectancy, Leverage Index, Run Expectancy, and Fans Scouting Report data licenced from TangoTiger.com. These projections by Steamer are a MUCH better indicator of a hitter's platoon splits than in-season stats since it involves multiple years of data and has been properly regressed to league averages. What Norimoto possesses, however, is power stuff. You can bet on him gauging the interest levels from ML scouts during 2018 and going from there, but, again, his intent isn’t well known. He also was shut down during the 2010 and 2013 seasons after experiencing shoulder pains. I slowly learned more about the NPB, though, as I grew up and Korean stars like Tae-Kyun Kim, Samson Lee, Seung-Yeop Lee, etc., headed there to play. He took the performance to the next level in 2016, slashing .322/.430/.680 with 44 home runs as a 24-year-old. Norimoto is eligible to be posted after the 2019 season at the expiration of his contract, and he has reportedly asked Rakuten to post him to ML teams at that point. by Retrosheet.