Every offseason, the best moves are sometimes the ones nobody sees coming. Hiromi Itoh isn’t a name tied to the Atlanta Braves in any official report, but the shape of the team’s pitching needs makes him worth a hard look, as he’s expected to be posted for MLB clubs this winter.
The end of the season left the Braves with a patchwork of bullpen games, rest days, and innings to cover. The bigger question is what comes next. Spencer Strider and Spencer Schwellenbach are both talented, but the uncertainty for both going into next season remains a big question.
Alex Anthoupolus himself answered questions from the Atlanta media on the subject: "I think from a planning standpoint, I don't think it'd be responsible to sit here and say, ‘OK, those guys are going to start 30 games and throw 180 innings.’ A team in that spot doesn’t necessarily need another ace. It needs a pitcher who can take the ball, stay in control, and absorb innings in whatever role the day demands.
Taking a flyer on a posting like Hiromi Itoh could help fill innings that the Braves currently don’t have answers for Itoh is a 5'9", 180-pound right-hander, and he doesn’t win by overpowering anyone. His fastball averages around 91-94 mph, but it plays up thanks to elite vertical break and a high spin feel. What sets him apart is command.
His 2025 season was the breakout. He went 14-8 with a 2.52 ERA across 196.2 innings, striking out 195 hitters against just 29 walks. That’s a rate most pitchers only dream about, and it earned him the Sawamura Award, the NPB equivalent of the Cy Young. It capped a steady climb through the league. His 3.18 ERA in 2026 wasn’t too shabby either.
Officially, Itoh throws five pitches: a four-seam fastball, slider, curveball, sinker, and changeup. But MLB.com’s Michael Clair reported that his real arsenal is much deeper, with “10+ unique grips and shapes.” That’s where the Yu Darvish comparisons come from, the same creative, spin-savvy approach to building a mix. Others have drawn a line to Sonny Gray, for his makeup and his ability to succeed in a smaller frame. His sinker-changeup combination generates plenty of ground balls and weak contact, which is a good recipe for suppressing damage without needing to chase strikeouts.
Another useful comparison is fellow Japanese right-hander Tatsuya Imai. Both are smaller in stature, and both have deep, varied pitch mixes. The key difference is command, where Itoh profiles as the more precise of the two. Both look like mid-to-back-end rotation pieces rather than top-of-the-staff aces, though Itoh could also work out of the bullpen.
The most intriguing idea is how Atlanta might use him. Think of how the Dodgers deployed Roki Sasaki in 2026: an up-and-down starter who also provided plenty of innings out of the bullpen. Itoh’s durability, command, and deep mix would make that kind of hybrid role plausible. He could start when the schedule demands it, then slide into a long-relief or bulk role when the Braves need to cover innings creatively. For a team with a rotation puzzle still unsolved, that flexibility has real value.
There are legitimate questions. Itoh lacks elite velocity, and his home run rates have run higher at times, partly tied to park factors at Es Con Field. His smaller frame also raises the question of how his heavy NPB workload, where he has regularly led the league in innings, translates to a 162-game MLB schedule with a shorter recovery rhythm. A smaller frame can mean a smaller margin for error in his mechanics.
Itoh isn’t the splashy, headline-grabbing ace. He’s a command-first pitcher with a deep repertoire, a Sawamura Award on his résumé, and the kind of workload history that could stabilize a staff full of moving parts. Whether Atlanta pursues him is anything but certain, and there’s no reporting to suggest they will. But if the Braves are building a pitching staff around flexibility and uncertainty, Hiromi Itoh is a name that belongs on the list.
Enjoy our content? Make BravesOnSI a Preferred Source to see more stories from us on Google: https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=si.com
Add us as a preferred source on Google