The number of Japanese players coming overseas to play in MLB has grown steadily over the last three decades. We’re looking at seasonal WAR numbers to see how high Shohei Ohtani and Co. must reach to make 2025 the best ever for players from the baseball-obsessed nation.
The long, rich history of Major League Baseball players and teams showcasing their skills in Japan dates back to the days when Babe Ruth and his contemporaries went barnstorming through the baseball-loving country in the 1930s.
The two-game Tokyo Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs on Tuesday and Wednesday feels different, however.
It’s not just that the 2025 MLB season is officially starting in Japan, of course. This is the sixth time that’s happened. And it’s not just that the Dodgers are opening their season after winning the 2024 World Series.
There are two elements that make this Tokyo Series especially special. The first thing: Five Japanese-born players will be competing in the two games (not including 10-year major leaguer and current Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, whose father was a U.S. Marine stationed there when he was born). The Dodgers have global superstar Shohei Ohtani, along with pitchers Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, while the Cubs counter with starter Shota Imanaga and outfielder Seiya Suzuki.
Japanese baseball fans are ready to welcome those stars home.
“You could not have it any better,” MLB Network analyst Dan Plesac, who pitched in 18 major league seasons, told Opta Analyst. “You have a guy in Ohtani who has captured that entire country, and then you’ve got a clash of Yamamoto and Imanaga, and then you add Suzuki and Sasaki to the mix?”
Plesac stopped and laughed.
“This is like the greatest smorgasbord of Japanese players,” he said, “guys who can make a real influence in Major League Baseball like the game’s never seen.”
And that, folks, is the second thing that makes this series especially special.
The 2025 MLB season could be – honestly, probably will be – the most productive season ever for Japanese MLB players. In addition to the five in the Tokyo Series, Yu Darvish (San Diego Padres), Kodai Senga (New York Mets), Yusei Kikuchi (Los Angeles Angels), Kenta Maeda (Detroit Tigers), Masataka Yoshida (Boston Red Sox) and Yuki Matsui (Padres) are back in 2025.
Pitchers Tomoyuki Sugano (Baltimore Orioles) and Shinnosuke Ogasawara (Washington Nationals) are prepared to make their MLB debuts this season, while Koyo Aoyagi (Philadelphia Phillies) and Shintaro Fujinami (Seattle Mariners) are likely to start in the minors but will certainly have an opportunity at some point.
No doubt, baseball has come a long way since Hideo Nomo dazzled with the Dodgers in 1995; he was only the second Japanese player in the majors, and the first since Masanori Murakami in 1964-65.
Using the Stats Perform formula for WAR – including numbers drawn from unique data collections such as historical pitch and play-by-play data – let’s take a look at the best seasons in terms of cumulative on-field production by players from Japan.
1. 2024
WAR: 25.51 (14.97 position, 10.55 pitching)
Need to Know: This was Ohtani’s still mind-boggling 50/50 season, along with WAR numbers around 3.0 from Imanaga, Kikuchi, Suzuki and Yamamoto. And this is where it starts to become clear that 2025, with every significant contributor to this number back in a major league uniform again, is set up to take the No. 1 spot.
Sure, it’ll be tough for Ohtani to repeat his 9.58 WAR as a designated hitter, but he’s expected to pitch again at some point this season, so an overall WAR number of 10 seems reasonable.
Health will be a huge factor. Yamamoto only made 18 starts last year, Darvish only 16 and Senga just one. If that trio makes 60-plus starts instead of just 35, that’ll be a big boost. Plus, the phenom Sasaki gets added to the mix from Nippon Professional Baseball.
At the plate, Suzuki’s overall numbers have been solid, but he’s shown the potential for a monstrous season. In the second half of 2024, for example, he posted a .300/.402/.487 slash line. If he does that for a full year – he’s always hit well at Wrigley Field – he could double his WAR.
2. 2007
WAR: 21.51 (16.39 position, 5.12 pitching)
Need to Know: This ranking is all about depth. Ichiro Suzuki checked in with the top WAR at just 3.85, but Kaz Matsui, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Aki Iwamura, Hideki Matsui, Tadahito Iguchi, Takashi Saito, Kenji Johjima, Hideki Okajima and So Taguchi all produced a WAR of 1.0 or better.
3. 2023
WAR: 20.16 (8.36 position, 11.79 pitching)
Need to Know: This was probably Ohtani’s finest double-dip season. He led American League batters in home runs, on-base percentage and total bases, and posted the second-best pitching season of his four with 10+ starts in innings pitched, wins, ERA and WHIP.
Humor me for a moment and read that last sentence again. Let’s all agree never to take Ohtani for granted, no matter how many mind-boggling things he does. Cool?
As for 2023, Darvish, Senga, Kikuchi and Maeda all had solid seasons on the mound, too, but it wasn’t the best year ever for pitchers from Japan. That was…
4. 2013
WAR: 19.17 (4.24 position, 14.92 pitching)
Need to Know: In Darvish’s second year in the majors, he led the AL in strikeouts and hits per 9.0 innings while finishing second in the AL Cy Young voting. Hisashi Iwakuma finished right behind him in third place with a 2.66 ERA in 33 starts, and Koji Uehara was seventh in the voting with one of the best relief seasons in recent memory: 1.09 ERA/1.61 FIP, with 33 hits and nine walks allowed in 74.1 innings for the Red Sox. Hiroki Kuroda, whose seven-year MLB career is wildly overlooked among Japanese standouts, had a 3.31 ERA in 32 starts for the New York Yankees.
5-12. 2005, 2003, 2014, 2006, 2004, 2009, 2008, 2016
WAR: From 17.82 in 2005 down to 16.79 in 2016
Need to Know: Yep, these were all bunched pretty tightly together. Ichiro, who later this year will be the first Japanese player to enter the National Baseball Hall of Fame, had a couple 6+ WAR seasons in here (2003-04), and Hideki Matsui had big seasons in 2004-05.
Research support provided by Jesse Abrahams of Stats Perform.
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