Padres Officially Sign 20-Year-Old Pitcher From Japan

The San Diego Padres have officially signed Tatsuya Nogami, a free agent right-handed pitcher from Japan, to a minor league contract with a $300,000 signing bonus.

Nogami, 20, was first linked to the Padres in multiple reports last week. Francys Romero reported the deal was official on Friday. According to his official transactions log, Nogami's contract was signed Oct. 15.

It's an unusual signing for the Padres, or any MLB team. Nogami did not play in Nippon Professional Baseball and only finished his junior year pitching for the Osaka Sangyo University semi-hardball team (junkoshiki), which uses a rubber-covered baseball with a hard core.

Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller must have been sold on Nogami's velocity (reported at 96 mph in Japan) and his ability to command the very different kind of ball he will be expected to throw in North America.

Nogami, who stands 6-foot-3, also throws a splitter and multiple breaking balls.

MLB.com reported last week that another Japanese pitcher, 18-year-old Shoki Oda, planned to skip the NPB draft and pursue a contract with an MLB team. Oda and Nogami join a relatively short list of amateurs from their homeland who have made the leap to North America without playing professionally in Japan.

According to MLB.com's Michael Clair, the group includes former Stanford slugger Rintaro Sasaki, who moved to the U.S. to pursue a college career, then was chosen in the seventh round of the 2026 MLB Draft.

"A's prospect Shotaro Morii opted to sign with an MLB team rather than enter the NPB Draft," Clair wrote. "Genei Sato transferred from Sendai University to Penn State to become eligible for next year's MLB Draft; and two-way University of Georgia player Kenny Ishikawa, who began his collegiate career in Japan, was drafted in the 13th round by the Reds this past summer."

In the Padres' case, it helps that baseball operations special assistant Hideo Nomo was the first Japanese player to establish himself as a long-term success story in MLB decades ago with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Padres have a long history of signing Japanese players, from Akinori Otsuka to Yu Darvish and Yuki Matsui. Nogami is a long way from the big leagues, but he'll have time (and a hefty signing bonus) to help him adapt to a new country, a new language and a new baseball.

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