Right-hander Naoyuki Uwasawa’s foray into North American ball will come to a close after one season. The SoftBank Hawks of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball announced this week that they’ve signed the 30-year-old righty to a four-year contract (link via The Mainichi).
Uwasawa signed a non-guaranteed deal with the Rays last offseason as he looked to make the jump to Major League Baseball on the heels of a nice nine-year run with NPB’s Nippon-Ham Fighters. He only spent spring training with Tampa Bay, however, as he triggered an assignment clause in his minor league deal at the end of camp when he was told he wouldn’t make the team. That prompted a trade to the Red Sox, who sent cash back to the Rays and selected Uwasawa to the 40-man roster the following day.
Uwasawa only wound up pitching in two games with Boston. He gave the Red Sox four innings of one-run ball across those two appearances but didn’t get a longer look, due in large part to his struggles down in Triple-A Worcester. The soft-tossing righty was hammered for a 7.63 ERA over 59 1/3 innings, during which time he fanned 16.8% of his opponents against a 12.9% walk rate. For a pitcher who was never a big strikeout arm in Japan but offset the lack of punchouts with sharp command, the walks were as uncharacteristic as they were problematic.
The Red Sox passed Uwasawa through waivers unclaimed in July. He was assigned outright to Triple-A and became a minor league free agent at season’s end. While there may have been some interest from other MLB clubs on a minor league deal, a four-year guarantee to return home to Japan understandably appears to have been too tempting for the right-hander to overlook.
Uwasawa will head back to Japan and look to build on what’s already a fine track record in NPB. He’s pitched 1118 1/3 innings at Japan’s top level and turned in a 3.19 ERA, a 70-62 record, a 19.7% strikeout rate and a 7.5% walk rate (though his strikeout rate has dwindled as his walk rate has improved further in recent NPB seasons).