Sign Shintaro Fujinami to a minor league deal.

With the rebranding of Minute Maid Park to Daikin Park…it gives the Astros a major edge now owning the only ballpark name directly tied to a Japanese company.

Baseball in Japan is absolutely ludicrous with the amount of fervor & fanfare that follow the sport religiously. The amount of baseball talent that is produced in Japan in correlation with the amount of $$$ that comes with it…it is advantageous for Houston to dip its toes into the Japanese market for baseball talent.

The organization obviously tried extremely hard acquiring Seiya Suzuki from the Cubs in the Kyle Tucker deal to replace King Tuck in RF, but just fell up a bit short…ultimately still getting a quality player haul however. We already have quality momentum with the Japanese community with the Daikin Park rebrand, not to mention the Yusei Kikuchi acquisition at the deadline!

Fujinami represents a low risk high reward flyer for the bullpen, not to mention adding another Japanese player to start a potential pipeline to attract more talent. One of Kikuchi’s quarrels among being traded was that Houston typically hardly ever has Japanese players. Kikuchi was the first Japanese player to ever throw a pitch in Houston Astros history. Sure, we have had Kaz Matsui & Nori Aoki as position players in the past, but those were both brief stints & not recent at all.

Fujinami also has nasty stuff, routinely topping out at 100mph. He just needs to be reigned in some as his command is what’s held him back. Way too wild & too many walks. He missed all of 2024 via injury with the Mets…but with proper instruction from our pitching coaches to improve his mechanics and command, I’m confident we could maybe get more out of him. Just like we were able to unlock Kikuchi a bit.

It’s worth a shot at least! It’s a low risk deal that can only help you. Best case scenario, you find a leverage bullpen arm for pennies on the dollar. Plus, who knows…maybe it could put us in better position for Munetaka Murakami or other Japanese stars down the line! They just keep producing them over there.