Free agent relief pitcher Takahiro Norimoto has received an offer from a major league club, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. The 35-year-old righty is weighing a move stateside but not firmly committed to making the jump. He’s also considering offers from clubs in Japan.
Norimoto has played 13 seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball, all with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. A starter for most of that time, he has transitioned into the Eagles’ closer over the past two years. Norimoto has gone 48-53 in save opportunities. He posted a 3.46 earned run average in 2024 and is coming off a 3.02 mark across 56 2/3 frames last season.
Despite his decent numbers at the back of the Eagles’ bullpen, Norimoto isn’t a power arm. He hasn’t recorded a strikeout rate above 20% in any of the past four seasons. Norimoto fanned just 17.2% of batters faced against an 8.4% walk rate last year. FanGraphs writes that he sits around 92 MPH on his fastball and features an above-average splitter as his best secondary pitch. He seemingly projects as a middle reliever or depth arm at the major league level.
It’d be a surprise if Norimoto commands more than a cheap one-year MLB contract. It’s possible he explores major league interest as a leverage play in negotiations for potentially bigger money in Japan. Norimoto has nine-plus seasons of service time in his home country, so he’s an unrestricted free agent who can sign with any club in NPB or a foreign league. An MLB team would not owe the Eagles a posting fee. Feinsand notes that Norimoto is likely to decide whether he’ll make the move to MLB within the next few days.
