Sources - Tomoyuki Sugano heading to MLB after Japanese career - ESPN

Right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano, the most successful Japanese pitcher of his generation to spend his whole career in Nippon Professional Baseball, will come to Major League Baseball as an international free agent this winter, sources told ESPN.

Sugano, who turns 35 in a week, is in the midst of a renaissance season that has seen him post a 1.67 ERA over 24 starts for the Central League champion Yomiuri Giants. He is a two-time winner of the Sawamura Award — the equivalent of the Cy Young — two-time Central League MVP and four-time ERA champion, and Sugano's reemergence paved the way for him to finally reach MLB.

In 2020, the Giants posted Sugano, and he was expected to sign with a big league team. He never reached an agreement before the posting deadline expired, and Sugano wound up returning to Tokyo, where his uncle, legendary Giants manager Tatsunori Hara, continued to lead the team.

Hara retired before this season, and Sugano has pitched exceptionally for Shinnosuke Abe, the Giants' longtime catcher to whom Sugano threw for years. This season, Sugano has averaged 92 mph with his four-seam fastball and relied on a two-seamer. He uses both an 82 mph slider and 87 mph cutter about 20% of the time, and he can bury a splitter at 86 mph and loop in a curveball at 77. Sugano, according to DeltaGraphs, has positive run values on all six pitches this season.

That six-pitch mix has flummoxed NPB hitters. Only Hiroto Takahashi, Chunichi's 22-year-old ace who is expected to join MLB down the road, has a better ERA at 1.38. What Sugano lacks in velocity he has made up for in command and pitchability. Over 156⅔ innings this season, Sugano has walked only 16 and allowed just six home runs — in a league with a home run rate that is