A 29-year-old who bats from the right side, Okamoto has recorded 248 home runs for Yomiuri during his career in Nippon Professional Baseball, reaching the 30-homer plateau in six straight seasons (2018-23) with a high of 41 in ’23.
After dropping to 27 homers over 143 games in 2024, injuries limited him to 77 games in ’25, over which he went deep 15 times and recorded a .992 OPS. He’s a lifetime .277/.361/.521 hitter in NPB.
American baseball fans got a glimpse of Okamoto’s power during the 2023 World Baseball Classic championship game, when he homered for Samurai Japan off Team USA’s Kyle Freeland in the bottom of the fourth inning. He finished the tournament with two homers, seven RBIs, eight walks and a 1.278 OPS as Japan won its third WBC title.
Once he’s posted, all 30 MLB teams will have a 45-day window to negotiate with him. In the event an agreement is reached, the signing team would need to pay a release fee to Yomiuri that would be determined by the guaranteed value of Okamoto’s contract.
If no agreement is reached in that timeframe, he will return to Yomiuri for the coming season. Okamoto is one NPB season away from gaining enough service time to become eligible for unrestricted international free agency, so he would be free to sign with an MLB team without being posted next offseason if it came to that.
