MMO Free Agent Profile: Kodai Senga, SP

Kodai Senga

Age: 29 (1/30/1993)

B/T: L/R

2022 Stats: 22 GS, 11-6 record, 148 IP, 1.94 ERA, 1.056 WHIP, 156 SO, 49 BB

Rundown

The continued globalization of baseball is a beautiful sight to behold for fans of Major League Baseball, as some of the brightest stars the sport has seen are making the move to professional play in the United States. Kodai Senga is the latest Japanese-born player to hit free agency, and he has the talent to become one of the greatest to follow that path.

Senga is a 29-year-old starting pitcher for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in NPB (Nippon Professional Baseball), and he already has 11 years of experience playing at the highest level in Japan. Senga made his professional debut in 2012 at just 19 years old, and his career numbers are extremely impressive: a 104-51 record with a 2.42 ERA across over 1,300 innings.

He had arguably the best season of his career in 2022, making 23 starts and posting an 11-6 record with a 1.89 ERA. He remained healthy throughout the year, something he has struggled to do in recent seasons, and helming the Hawks’ starting rotation in the 2022 Pacific League Climax Series.

Senga began his career as a reliever but has quickly grown into a dominant starting pitcher. He showcases a devastating pitch arsenal that includes a fastball sitting around 96 mph this past season and a forkball nicknamed the “ghost fork” due to its deceptive movement. His strikeout numbers have dropped slightly throughout the course of his career, but he has lowered his walk rate and his WHIP is elite.

Contract

Senga has generated a ton of buzz among MLB front offices since officially opting out of his contract with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks on October 15. He is one of two NPB players looking to make the move to MLB this offseason, along with Orix Buffaloes outfielder Masataka Yoshida.

Senga has a proven track record of success in Japan, but there are always questions about how success in international leagues will translate to success in Major League Baseball. Still, there will be plenty of teams more than willing to take a chance on Senga and capture the magic that he has continually demonstrated on the mound. Most contract estimations appear to have him in the realm of four years and $60 million, an average annual salary of $15 million that would have him as one of the highest-paid starting pitchers in the league.

The utter dominance of Ichiro Suzuki and Shohei Ohtani in the American game are obvious demonstrations that players can make the move from NPB to MLB and enjoy immediate and long-lasting success. On a smaller scale, players like Masahiro Tanaka and more recently Seiya Suzuki have shown that teams would be remiss to pass up on the chance to sign NPB stars just because of hesitancies about how they will hold up against major league caliber opponents.

Recommendation

It is clear that the Mets are in desperate need of starting pitching depth. Three-fifths of last season’s full-strength starting rotation (Jacob deGrom, Chris Bassitt, and Taijuan Walker) are free agents, and they can only fill so many of those spots with in-house replacements like David Peterson and Tylor Megill.

The Mets appear to be in the hunt for a top-end ace in the free agent market like deGrom, Justin Verlander, or Carlos Rodón. They have also reportedly targeted Andrew Heaney and have reached out to the Tampa Bay Rays about possible trade options, potentially in an effort to get a player who would profile more as a third or fourth starter.

This is a role that Senga would likely fill if he were to sign with a contender, which he has expressed interest in. He has also made it clear that he wants to play in a big market, so the Mets tick both boxes.

The asking price may be steep and could even go up based on the competition for his services, but the Mets should do their due diligence in reaching out to his camp and gauging if there is any mutual interest. With the demonstrated talent that Senga has, it would be foolish to ignore the potential value he could add right away to a team with World Series aspirations.