Rintaro Sasaki has officially announced his intention to sign with the Miami Marlins, electing the most direct path toward his Major League aspirations over joining the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Nippon Professional Baseball.
The 21-year-old slugger revealed his decision at a July 19 press conference in his native Iwate Prefecture.
“Even if this path ultimately ends in failure, I simply do not want to live with regrets,” Sasaki said. Miami selected the first baseman with the 235th overall pick in the eighth round of the 2026 MLB Draft.
Sasaki became one of Japan’s most prominent amateur prospects after hitting an unofficial national high school record of 140 home runs at Hanamaki Higashi, the alma mater of Shohei Ohtani and Yusei Kikuchi. Rather than enter the 2023 NPB Draft, however, he prioritized his education and an expedited path towards playing in MLB by enrolling at Stanford University.
After a somewhat disappointing debut season that lowered the hype surrounding him as Baseball America’s Preseason National Freshman of the Year, he took a leap forward in 2026, recording a .952 OPS with 16 home runs in 54 games. He also participated in the MLB Draft Combine, recording a 115.4 mph max exit velocity.
But Sasaki still faced a difficult decision, as SoftBank had secured his exclusive NPB negotiating rights after winning a first round lottery against the Yokohama DeNA BayStars in the 2025 NPB Draft. The 6-foot, 270-pound prospect visited Fukuoka and toured the team’s top-tier facilities earlier in July, leaving highly impressed by what he saw.
The defending Japan Series champions could also offer considerably more money in the short term, including a signing bonus nearly four times larger than Miami’s, and a more immediate shot at stardom. However, the team’s longstanding reluctance to use the posting system complicated Sasaki’s future path to MLB, and reaching the Majors had always been his ultimate goal.
Despite Sasaki going unsigned, SoftBank will receive no compensation pick. Chief Baseball Officer Kenji Johjima nevertheless expressed respect for Sasaki’s decision, noting that the organization understood the risk when it selected him and that his potential emergence as a world-class player would validate its evaluation of him.
