The Los Angeles Dodgers are being described as the favorites to sign a teenage Japanese pitching prospect who says he wants to take an unusual path to professional baseball.
Shoki Oda, an 18-year-old Japanese right-hander, says he wants to play in the United States rather than in Japan’s pro league.
Some Japanese outlets say the teenager is leaning toward bypassing Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in favor of signing with the Dodgers. The team, however, has not commented publicly.
Just last week, the Yomiuri Giants selected Oda in the first round of the NPB draft. His drafting came despite already voicing a week earlier that he wanted to pursue a career in the U.S. instead.
Major League Baseball rules dictate that amateur players from overseas can sign a minor league contract as an international free agent or play at the collegiate level at an American university.
Typically, highly heralded international players, especially in Japan, opt for the guaranteed professional deal in their home country. This allows them to make some professional wages, hone their craft and, eventually, enter the MLB free agency pool in their prime.
Oda is apparently taking a more direct route.
Will Shoki Oda sign with the Dodgers?
While the Dodgers haven’t said anything publicly about Oda, much of Monday’s coverage in Japan traces back to a U.S. report by the California Post.
Dodgers beat reporter and California Post senior sports reporter Dylan Hernandez said it’s widely believed in baseball circles that Oda will end up with the Dodgers.
The sentiment has been echoed in Japanese outlets including Full-Count and Sanspo.
Sanspo’s summary quoted the report as saying that even if Oda doesn’t sign with the Dodgers, “the next Oda will” go the same route. Full-Count said the report called the situation an existential threat for Japanese baseball.
- (These are translations from an AI tool, so some nuance may be lost)
Other Japanese reporting on the topic predates last week’s NPB draft.
AERA DIGITAL reported on Oct. 17 that the Dodgers had long been viewed as the likely destination for Oda. An unnamed MLB source told the magazine the “outer moat” around Oda had “already been filled” by Los Angeles—roughly meaning the groundwork has already been laid.
Chunichi Sports reporter Taro Abe also views the Dodgers as the favorites, according to FanGraphs’ summary of the report.
Abe also noted that Oda may have had contact with Dodgers officials during a recent trip to the U.S. The report said about 10 MLB teams are expected to meet with Oda, including the Yankees, Cardinals and Pirates.
Multiple outlets have connected the dots regarding Oda, including that his favorite player is Dodgers All-Star Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and the fact that he follows only one MLB team on Instagram: the Dodgers.
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The Japanese league also has other factors going against it. It can’t compete with MLB when it comes to the money.
“Bonuses for NPB draft picks are capped at 100 million yen, or about $640,000,” Hernandez of the California Post writes. “Major league teams are assigned bonus pools to sign international amateurs, and they are free to allocate as much of that as they want to any one player. The Dodgers’ bonus pool was $7.2 million last year.”
Hernandez cited an MLB talent scout who estimated that Oda’s signing bonus could clock in at $3-5 million.
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While signs seem to point toward a potential signing with the Dodgers, L.A. isn’t the only marquee team in the mix. The Yankees and Mets have also been named as potential players, as New York Post columnist Joel Sherman reported that rival executives expect the Yankees to push hard.
All of this could be moot, as a potential MLB lockout still remains a major point of concern as the league’s labor agreement expires in December.
Oda wouldn’t be able to sign in MLB without a labor contract in place.
If there’s no concrete news about the 2027 MLB season, could Oda instead opt to stay in Japan where things aren’t as uncertain? That’s up to him—there are a lot of factors at play.
Who is Shoki Oda?
The 18-year-old Shoki Oda attends Yokohama High School in Yokohama, Japan. The school also produced trailblazing Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, who was a World Series champion in 2007 as a member of the Boston Red Sox.
According to MLB.com, Oda threw a 97.6 mph fastball at this summer’s Koshien tournament which was a tournament record.
At an Oct. 15 news conference, Oda said he wanted to go to the U.S. for the opportunity to play in the top league in the world. The weekly magazine FRIDAY quoted him as saying that wanting to become the best player in the world was the biggest factor.
Oda apparently being willing to risk everything to sign with the Dodgers is a sign of the work the team has put in to plant seeds overseas in hopes of reaping the rewards at a later time. The Dodgers have intentionally made Asia a focus of their talent scouting and have invested heavily to build goodwill in Japan and neighboring nations.
The Dodgers are the most popular team in Japan and in Asia as a whole, although teams like the Yankees and Chicago Cubs also have strong footholds across the Pacific.
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But the Dodgers don’t dominate popularity in Asia only because of high-profile stars like Shohei Ohtani, Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki and Hyeseong Kim (although that’s the biggest driver). The team views Japan and the rest of Asia as a potential feeder league for its dynasty, and that’s one thing that sets apart the team from the rest of MLB: filling the “outer moat” long before other teams even realize what’s going on.
As previously mentioned, the Dodgers have not commented on potential link with Oda. The league year doesn’t end for a few more days, but I expect we will hear something sooner rather than later.
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