Japan’s “Otani rival” Shintaro Fujinami, who was the only Japanese player unable to find a new destination, will wear the New York Mets’ uniform. It is only a one-year contract, but he will be able to continue his career in the Major League.마카오카지노주소
John Hayman of the U.S. “New York Post” reported on the 3rd (Korea time) that the New York Mets and Shintaro Fujinami have agreed to a contract. The contract is worth $3.5 million (about 4.7 billion won) per year, which includes $850,000 (about 1.1 billion won) in incentives.
Fujinami is well-known among Korean baseball fans as Shohei Ohtani’s rival. Fujinami was highly regarded as a rival of Ohtani when he was in high school. In fact, she outperformed Ohtani in the early days when she joined the Hanshin Tigers. Since her debut season, she has made a splendid debut, pitching in 24 games, recording 10 wins, 6 losses and an earned run average of 2.75.
Good trends continued during the debut season. In the second year since his debut, he played in 25 games, recording 11 wins, eight losses and an ERA of 3.53, securing a spot in Hanshin’s starting lineup. In 2015, he pitched in 28 games and ate 199 innings, and achieved four wins, seven losses and an ERA of 2.40, going on a winning path. However, with the end of the 2015 season, his heyday has come to an end.
Fujimi posted a 3.25 ERA in 26 appearances in the 2016 season, but he failed to continue his double-digit victory for the fourth consecutive year, unable to match the victory, and his ERA soared to the four-point level from the 2017 season. In the end, Fujimi will not be able to have a single 10-win season until the 2022 season. There were 35 wins in his three years since debut, and only 22 wins in the next seven seasons.
Still, the positive factor was that Fujimi regained her past in the second half of the 2022 season. Based on this, Fujimi expressed her intention to advance to the Major League for her dream, and Hanshin also actively supported Fujimi’s challenge and entered the big league through a one-year 3.25 million-dollar contract with the Oakland Athletics. However, her performance in Oakland in the early days of the season was truly disastrous.
Through competition in the spring camp, he secured a starting position, but since his debut, he has been sluggish with eight runs (eight earned) in two ⅓ innings, and in his second appearance, he failed to live up to expectations with five runs (five earned) in four ⅓, before leaving the starting lineup and changing his position to a bullpen. He wanted to make the most of him by spraying fast balls over 160 kilometers.
However, even after he transitioned to the post, his performance was disastrous. His performance in May was the worst with two wins and one loss and an earned run average of 10.50 in 11 games. After repeated slumps, he started to improve in June. After posting one win and two losses and an earned run average of 3.97 in 10 games in June, he moved to the Baltimore Orioles, where he is competing in the postseason, in July.
In Baltimore, Fujimi did not leave the performance he had when he rebounded from Oakland, but he helped the team win the American League East and became a free agent after the 2023 season. He showed his worst and best performance, but when he was in good condition, he left an “impact” enough to survive in the Major League and took the move with the goal of staying in the big league.
Japan’s Daily Sports said on the 18th of last month that “Shintaro Fujimi is continuing negotiations with multiple Major League Baseball teams that need relief pitchers such as the Baltimore Orioles, Oakland Athletics, San Francisco Giants, and Boston Red Sox,” and finally agreed to a contract with the New York Mets on the same day. It is a short one-year contract, but he will be able to continue his major league career for the second consecutive year.
As Fujinami wore the Mets uniform, another Japanese duo was born. Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (L.A. Dodgers), Yu Darvish (San Diego Padres), Seiya Imanaga and Seiya Suzuki (Chicago Cubs), followed by Shintaro Fujinami and Kodai Senga (Metz).