Padres Looking To Add Japanese Pitcher?

The Padres have a ton of starting pitching. That’s one of their strengths. However, we’ve seen that you can never have enough in this day and age, and the Padres realize that. A.J. Preller has made a commitment to scout internationally.

According to a Yahoo Sports Japan report,  Orix Buffalo ace Chihiro Kaneko may be posted by the Buffaloes. With that in mind, the Padres were one of the teams who scouted the 31-year-old right-hander. Kaneko is in the U.S. to visit and was at the World Series to get a look at American baseball. 

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Kaneko had a great season for Orix last season. He went 15-5 with a 1.91 ERA. In 184 innings, he struck out 194. He only walked 41 and gave up 148 hits.

With the new posting system agreed to with MLB, the max a team can bid for the posting fee is $20 million, plus, the player can negotiate with multiple teams.

Kaneko is someone to keep an eye on as the off-season starts to unfold.

Here’s some video of Kaneko pitching: