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Jeff Passan, Senior MLB Insider
Right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano and the Baltimore Orioles have agreed to a contract, the team announced Monday night, uniting one of the most successful Japanese pitchers of his generation with a team in need of rotation help. The deal is for one year and $13 million, sources told ESPN.
The 35-year-old Sugano — a two-time winner of the Sawamura Award, Nippon Professional Baseball’s equivalent of the Cy Young Award — nearly came to Major League Baseball after the Yomiuri Giants posted him in December 2020. He never signed, returned to the Giants and performed almost as well this year as in his Sawamura-winning 2017 and 2018 seasons.
In 24 starts this year, Sugano went 15-3 with a 1.67 ERA. Over 156 ⅔ innings, he struck out 111, walked only 16 and allowed six home runs. Though Sugano’s fastball sits around 92 mph, nearly two-thirds of his pitches this year were off-speed — a mixture of a slider, cutter, curveball and split-fingered fastball.
Baltimore has canvassed the free agent market for pitching this winter, looking to solidify its rotation with Corbin Burnes reaching free agency and right-handers Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells returning from reconstructive elbow surgeries. The Orioles head into 2025 after back-to-back postseason appearances with a rotation that includes Zach Eflin, Grayson Rodriguez, Dean Kremer and now Sugano.
Baltimore’s efforts to re-sign Burnes have not abated, sources said, but the price is expected to land well beyond Chris Davis’ $161 million contract — the largest free agent deal in franchise history. The Orioles were purchased by private equity titan David Rubenstein in August after six consecutive seasons in which the team’s Opening Day payroll ranked 26th or lower among MLB’s 30 teams.
Between Sugano’s deal and the three-year, $49.5 million contract for outfielder Tyler O’Neill, the Orioles’ 2025 payroll is estimated to be around $110 million. The pitching market has proven hot in the early parts of free agency, from the top of the market (Max Fried, $218 million) to the one-year tier (Alex Cobb, $15 million).
Sugano enters his 13th season and will play in a Camden Yards that will be less pitcher-friendly than last season. The Orioles will move the left-field wall, where home runs often went to die, by as much as 20 feet in some places. Sugano has been a heavy groundball pitcher for most of his career and induced 51.1% ground balls this year.
