The Rockies have reached an agreement on a one-year free-agent contract with right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano, a source told MLB.com’s Thomas Harding on Tuesday. The club has not yet announced the move.
Sugano came to the Major Leagues in 2025 after a long, stellar career in Nippon Professional Baseball. The longtime ace of the Yomiuri Giants — Japan’s most storied franchise — joined the Orioles on a one-year, $13 million deal.
The veteran Sugano will be pitching for Team Japan in the World Baseball Classic alongside Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Yusei Kikuchi.
In Baltimore, the 36-year-old right-hander turned out to be one of the Orioles’ more dependable starting pitchers in a down season for the team. Sugano was the only O’s pitcher to make 30 starts, going 10-10 with a 4.64 ERA and 106 strikeouts in 157 innings.
Sugano has a large pitch arsenal, throwing six different pitch types: a four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter, sweeper, curveball and splitter. At this stage of his career, he doesn’t have high velocity — his fastball averaged just under 93 mph in 2025 — but he gets outs by mixing all six of his pitches.
Sugano’s best pitch is his splitter — the wipeout pitch of many Japanese aces — which he threw more often than any other pitch in 2025 and used to record 50 of his 106 strikeouts.
In his first season in MLB, Sugano was excellent at limiting walks — his 5.3% walk rate was seventh-lowest among pitchers who threw at least 150 innings last season — but he was vulnerable to the long ball, allowing an American League-high 33 home runs.
Sugano pitched his first 12 professional seasons for Yomiuri, where he won two Sawamura Awards in 2017 and 2018 — Japan’s equivalent of the Cy Young — and three MVP Awards in 2014, 2020 and 2024. He was an eight-time All-Star and led his league in ERA four times and in strikeouts twice.
In 276 NPB games, Sugano went 136-74 with a 2.43 ERA and 1,585 strikeouts in 1,857 innings.
