"Despite Roki Sasaki and Hyeseong Kim both earning World Series Championship rings with the Los Angeles Dodgers in their rookie season, it was still a frustrating year for players joining MLB from Japan and Korea. To be fair, Sasaki was injured for most of the summer, but he was a key contributor in the playoffs, coming out of the bullpen to collect three saves and two holds for the back-to-back champions."
"He was successful early on for the Baltimore Orioles, posting a 3.04 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP over his first 12 starts (spanning 71 innings) before a low strikeout rate and high home run rate yielded a 5.97 ERA and a 1.57 WHIP over his final 18 outings (covering 86 frames). This year, a pair of hitters share the spotlight with a promising starting pitcher, all coming overseas from Japan."
"These two corner infielders will be discussed together since they offer such a stark contrast in skill sets. Murakami is a 26-year-old slugger who won the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB) Triple Crown for the Yakult Swallows in 2022. After hitting 56 homers that season, he added 64 more over the next two years. Last year, he had only 22 homers, but those came in just 56 games as he experienced injury issues."
Roki Sasaki and Hyeseong Kim earned World Series rings with the Los Angeles Dodgers as rookies, yet many newcomers from Japan and Korea experienced a frustrating season. Sasaki missed most of the summer due to injury but helped in the playoffs with three saves and two holds and is slated to return to the Dodgers rotation in 2026. Scouts compared Sasaki favorably to top prospects like Paul Skenes and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Tomoyuki Sugano debuted well for the Orioles before performance declined late in the season. The 2026 overseas class includes notable hitters and pitchers from Japan who could impact fantasy production.
Read at ESPN.com
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