The latest international prospect tied to Major League Baseball should be signing soon. Japanese outfielder Masataka Yoshida has officially been posted, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
Star Japanese outfielder Masataka Yoshida has officially been posted, sources tell ESPN. He’ll have 30 days to sign a deal with an MLB team. There is significant interest in the 29-year-old, who this year hit .335/.447/.551 with 80 walks and 41 strikeouts for the Orix Buffaloes.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 6, 2022
This means that there are MLB teams that have agreed to pay the price to be acquired from Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in Japan. The old system would grant one team access to deal with the free agent baseball player, but now with the new posting system, all 30 teams have a chance to sign the prospect. Yoshida will have 30 days to sign with a team, and if he remains unsigned, he will need to be posted again in a future year.
Yoshida is 29 years old and has been in the NPB for seven years. He has played in 762 career games and is a career .327 hitter. He has 133 home runs and 467 RBI in that span. Among the teams interested in signing the free agent are rumored to be the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners and San Francisco Giants.
Yoshida is currently a member of the Orix Buffaloes. In order to be posted, his organization had to grant his request. If Yoshida goes un-signed, he will return to the Buffaloes but could be posted again in the future. The current posting timeframe is from November 1 to February 1, so the earliest he could be posted again would be November 1, 2023.