What's the future of baseball in Japan as best players leave for MLB?

Two young stars — 19-year-old Rintaro Sasaki and 18-year-old Shotaro Morii — have moved directly to American baseball, bypassing NPB restrictions and unwritten societal norms of playing first in Japan. Sasaki is a freshman at Stanford, while Morii has a minor league contract with the Athletics.

With even Japanese teenagers now going against tradition and signing on to play college ball in the States, I'm afraid it appears Japanese baseball has become a feeder system for the MLB - if it wasn't already.

I for one would not begrudge any of these players taking the money on the table in the US and setting themselves up for life. The money in the MLB is insane.

Judging best players/prospects from any country changes year to year. Most do not stay at the top for as long as Ichiro or Ohtani. The Hanshin Tigers top prospect, pitcher Mombetsu?, shut out a team of MLBers last week. But he has never and may never win a game in NPB if something goes wrong physically. So I would expect a good half decade of results here before seeing him play in America.

You would not ask such a stupid question if you actually lived in Japan. You just have look for park lights in summer and park will be filled with young teams practicing under them. Travel on the local densha on weekend and there will be carriages half full with young teams travelling to there games. Have look at all the crew cut hair style of the youth travelling to and from school crew cuts hair style go hand in hand with young baseballers. I spend a lot of time in Iwate not far from The Mecca of Junior baseball Hanamaki. This is the next generation to fill the ranks of the NPB. There is no shortage and Juniors competition and are of very high quality because of the amount of players and competition. This the reason why the NPB is the best professional Baseball league in the world. The NPB is where the talent is, MLB is where the money is. My team the Hanshin Tiger with only Japanese national will easy beat the dodges if it was only fill with USA national.

Japan's baseball is fine, as all these athletes put on a great show and fans can't tell the difference. Those in US just slightly bigger, stronger, faster and more skillful.

"You would not ask such a stupid question if you actually lived in Japan. You just have look for park lights in summer and park will be filled with young teams practicing under them. Travel on the local densha on weekend and there will be carriages half full with young teams travelling to there games. Have look at all the crew cut hair style of the youth travelling to and from school crew cuts hair style go hand in hand with young baseballers. I spend a lot of time in Iwate not far from The Mecca of Junior baseball Hanamaki. This is the next generation to fill the ranks of the NPB. There is no shortage and Juniors competition and are of very high quality because of the amount of players and competition."

Least we forget the youth are challenging themselves even harder due to the influence of Ohtani, Sasaki among other baseball role models.

There's enough talent here to keep NPB games popular and interesting.

Then again, living in Hanshin Tigers territory, I probably have a skewed perspective of Japanese baseball fan devotion. Nobody loves their team and baseball as much as Tigers fans. They're crazy. But, the good kind of crazy.

Of course every professional baseball player wants to play in the best league in the world.

And as a now impoverished country, Japanese baseball cannot generate enough revenue to compete on salaries.

A far greater threat is demographics. And the fact that Jr high schools are phasing out club activities.

https://benesse.jp/educational_terms/28.html

And as a now impoverished country, Japanese baseball cannot generate enough revenue to compete on salaries.

Of the 30 players on Japan's roster during it's winning 2023 WBC campaign, 25 played in impoverished Japan.

@Japan Glimpsed

Then they are just not good enough to play in the MLB. The average salary for a pro baseball player in Japan is $315,203 compared to an average of $4,900,000 in the MLB. Nobody is that stupid to pass up that kind of money for the chump change they can make in Japan.

どうも。Sussed that out. You missed the point: Japanese baseball remains competitive, despite the lower salaries.

Then they are just not good enough to play in the MLB.

Perhaps, proxy intellect, such athletes choose to remain in Japan.

@Japan Glimpsed

No, competitive athletes do no choose to remain in a minor league and play for bargain basement wages.

Pro athletes want to play at the highest level possible and for baseball, that is MLB.

Just like soccer, Japanese players dream of playing in Europe and the Kashima Antlers are either a training opportunity to get to a better league or the end-of-the-line.

proxy: The MLB is an inferior competition compared to the NPB but the MLB is where the money is. The NPB is where the world best talent is period. You also forget that the USA is a English speaking country not a country that Japanese nor the majority of the western world want to visit let alone live.

@John-San

LOL

63,000 American citizens live in Japan compared to 410,000 Japanese citizens who live in the USA so, the numbers to not support support the conclusion above that it is "not a country that Japanese nor the majority of the western world want to visit let alone live."

John-SanMar. 19  06:35 am JST

proxy: The MLB is an inferior competition compared to the NPB but the MLB is where the money is. The NPB is where the world best talent is period. You also forget that the USA is a English speaking country not a country that Japanese nor the majority of the western world want to visit let alone live.

You're letting your emotions take control here and that rarely helps formulate a good argument. Leaving aside your specious claims about the MLB vs NPB, we may actually agree on a fair amount when it comes to the current state of the US, but still, facts are facts and the facts would certainly seem to belie your claims with regards to Japanese or westerners wanting to visit and or live in the US.

According to NTTO, there were 66.5 million international visits the U.S in 2023, still below pre-Covid numbers of 2019.

In 2023, over 25.07 million domestic and international tourists visited Japan, marking an increase from the previous year but remained below the peaks of 2018 and 2019. - JNTO

Overall, a record 47.8 million immigrants lived in the U.S. in 2023, up from 46.2 million in 2022. The nation’s immigrant population includes naturalized U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents and lawful temporary residents, as well as unauthorized immigrants. - Pew Research Foundation

In 2022, trainees represented the second-largest category of foreign workers. Because of these reforms and initiatives, the number of foreign nationals in Japan rose by 11 percent from 2022 to 2023 and now stands at three million people, the highest number in Japanese history. - Harvard International Review