It's not even September and MLB front offices are already lining up for the next big Japanese import. According to MLB Trade Rumors, Teruaki Sato has drawn interest from four teams that don't exactly need help finding stars: the Mets, Yankees, Dodgers and Phillies.
For anyone who hasn't been tracking NPB, Sato is a legitimate name. The 27-year-old third baseman won the 2025 Central League MVP award after hitting 40 home runs with 102 RBIs, and he's followed it up with another monster year in 2026, hitting.318 with 27 homers and a 1.026 OPS across 103 games. He's also got a Gold Glove, four All-Star nods, and a Japan Series title from 2023 on his resume. In short: this isn't a project bat, it's a proven middle-of-the-order threat with 155 career NPB home runs.
The catch is that Sato hasn't been posted yet. Per the report, he's expected to be made available to MLB clubs this winter, which would trigger the usual 45-day negotiating window. There's also a wrinkle worth watching: a potential lockout on December 1 could freeze that window and complicate timelines for any club trying to close a deal.
The four teams linked here aren't random. Jon Heyman, who first reported the interest, tied the Mets' pursuit to their need at first base, while noting all four organizations have a track record of chasing Japanese talent. That's the Dodgers who've built a roster around Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Yankees with their history of scouting NPB free agents, and the Phillies, who've dipped into the market before too. Scouts do have some debate about whether Sato's glove sticks at third or whether he ends up moving to first base long-term, but nobody's questioning the bat.
It's early. Sato hasn't been posted, there's no契 number floating around yet, and plenty can change between now and whenever Hanshin actually lets him negotiate. But four big-market, big-payroll teams circling the same 27-year-old MVP this far out is the kind of smoke that usually means fire come winter meetings season.