Who is Teruaki Sato? MLB’s next big Japanese sensation is already linked to the Dodgers

One of the best parts of this gig is the constant opportunity to learn about players and trends that I had, until then, never heard of, and then share that knowledge with all you wonderful people. Blogging is built on that energy; learn, write up your findings and then share it with people that might appreciate it.

Those of us that do this professionally sometimes lose the charm of pure education and communication by acting like an authority all the time, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you I really knew a lot about Teruaki Sato before writing this. I’m not a Japan-based area scout, I do not follow the Nippon Professional Baseball league. I am writing this because our traffic insights are telling us it’s a good time to write about him. But that meant I got to put in the work to learn about someone who could be the next thing in MLB and am here to share it with all of you. So, let’s talk about Teruaki Sato.

Teruaki Sato could be the next Japanese megastar to be posted

Sato is a 27-year-old slugger who has been hitting the cover off the ball in the NPB in 2026 and looks poised to be the next Munetaka Murakami/Kazuma Okamato hype train that MLB teams think could make an immediate impact. Posting a .924 OPS in 2025 before upping it to 1.021 in 2026, Sato doesn’t look like he has much left to learn before facing Major League pitching. He played in the World Baseball Classic and recorded an RBI double off Ranger Suarez, and he also hit a home run off of Blake Snell in an exhibition in 2025. 

Teams reportedly interested in Sato include the Mets, Yankees, Dodgers and Phillies, per MLB Trade Rumors, though it’s worth noting that Sato is not guaranteed to be posted by the Hanshin Tigers — nor is it clear how MLB’s looming labor apocalypse will affect the relationship between the NPB and MLB, which share an already uneasy agreement with the janky posting system. A new CBA could change a lot, and could change a lot for Sato. There is no good read on if he will actually come over in 2027.

But back to the baseball player. Whether NPB stats translate to MLB numbers is one of the great questions of our postmodern age. There were legitimate concerns about Murakami’s plate discipline against Major League pitching … but he kinda just became Kyle Schwarber anyway. There were questions about if Ichiro Suzuki could hit .370 in the United States … but he did. It’s an inexact science, and plenty of Japanese players have not lived up to expectations — my guy Masataka Yoshida certainly hasn’t, though he did carve himself out a role on a number of Boston Red Sox teams despite his way-too-large contract. 

Sato has crazy power, but will it translate to MLB?

Sato has scintillating home run totals, hitting 40 last season and 28 so far this year. But the underlying data, supplied by the WBC and NPB+’s limited TrackMan data, tells an even more enticing (if slightly concerning) story. A great English-language feature by Yuri Karasawa for Just Baseball (which you should go read, it’s right here at this link, seriously go read it) outlined a lot of the data around Sato that is publicly available and why he could be so attractive to MLB clubs. He has truly gobsmacking league- and park-adjusted stats (204 wRC+, 279 OPS+) and serious bat speed that should translate across the Pacific pond. 

The problem is his swing-and-miss rate, concerning enough to note and sure to stoke fears that he will be eaten alive by MLB breaking balls over a 162-game season. Murakami struck out a lot in Japan, but he also walked a lot; he has struck out even more in the United States, but has kept his walk rate up and managed to ride his ridiculous raw power to epic Schwarberian heights. Sato doesn’t walk as much as Murakami did but displays the same kind of video-game pop that could salvage poor whiff numbers.

Watching Sato clips as a new observer is also just downright fun. He has a menacing stance that kinda looks like a 50-50 mix of Mookie Betts and Aaron Judge (that’s an aggressively vibed comparison, once again I am not a scout) and the speed of his swing is visible. He’s a big guy — listed at 6-foot-2 and 209 pounds — but he stands so compact you might forget about it until the ball explodes off a swing that you might miss if you blink.

As with many international prospects and professionals, there’s a risk with Sato that his game will not transfer over. But there’s also a chance that MLB coaches and development could add layers to his game that even he doesn’t know about — one of the beauties of baseball is how development theories are different around the world. Japanese baseball legend Sadaharu Oh famously benefited from the hitting philosophy of Hiroshi Arakawa and hit 868 home runs. And while I can’t prove this, 35-year-old Red Sox reliever Tyron Guerrero spent a season in Japan, known as a haven for command development, and suddenly can place his 103-mph sinker. Coincidence?

It’s just a hunch, but I think Sato’s raw power could be tapped into by a creative MLB franchise and he could become an elite ballplayer in the states. Fusing his already freakish abilities with a new style and philosophy is what makes professional transfers like this so exciting. There’s a chance nothing happens, there’s a chance this is all for nothing. But I had a great time learning about Teruaki Sato, and I hope you did too.

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