This is EXACTLY The Hitter The Padres Need...

This is exactly the kind of player the Padres need, as he will be made available and would fit nicely into the Padres lineup. Who is he? How good is he? How much is he going to cost? Let's talk about it. Hi, welcome back to another episode of Padres Digest with your host, Andrew. Season might be over, but our pain is eternal. We are talking more free agency. I talked about Casey Mize yesterday, but I've been seeing a lot of talk of this certain Japanese player, and we will get into him in just a second. Get into him? Get into it? Whatever. Just a second. Before I get too deep into the video, please subscribe, as always. Follow us on X, Instagram, Facebook, Padre's Digest. So, let's talk about a guy you probably don't know, but you're going to learn right now. Teruaki Sato wins the NPB Triple Crown, a.k.a. he is very good. So, what was his road, or what's his road to the MLB, right? In 2021, he debuted for the Hanshin Tigers, 24 home runs, wins the Japan Series, Central League MVP, I can read, plays for Japan at the World Baseball Classic, came in links from the four clubs, we'll get into those later, and then he wins the NPB Triple Crown. So, he is a very good player, right? Sato is similar to Murakami, who had a very good year, is a left-handed slugger with game-changing pop. he's also the first Hanshin Tiger to win the Triple Crown in 40 years so again very good we'll get into stats in just a sec but the linked teams according to John Haymond and others Mets, Yankees, Phillies, Dodgers and Cubs. Andrew, the Padres aren't on there. Well, we're the Padres, we're always in on everybody so don't expect it, don't expect us to not be in on him, right? So Teruaki Sato, I keep saying teriyaki, I'm so sorry, Teruaki Sato is a good hitter mostly, right? So his OPS by month: a thousand, a thousand eight hundred, eight hundred a thousand eight hundred, so obviously very good, right? Uh, and then for his, uh, there's a little cut off let me go over here i said there we go the most comprehensive overview of Teruaki Sato you can find some additional 2026 data 117 miles per hour is max exit velocity 93.8 miles per hour was the exit velocity uh average 50 no ev50 hold on i'll come back to that yep i was right i doubted myself the average exit velocity uh 55.3 a hard hit percentage 18.4 barrel percentage he also registered a 29.5 foot per second top speed in line with names like AJ Ewing and Pete Pro Armstrong so he's also very very fast uh so do not sleep on him right so overall he's just on paper Sato looks like a good bet as anyone so let's look at the stats right let's go back over here so last year he had a 306 average 383 on base percentage 609 slug 991 ops 39 home runs 106 rbis 40 doubles 202 weighted runs created plus 100 being average and eight stolen bases uh of course he's fast but again stolen bases aren't really as big a thing as they used to be but again triple crown winner 117 miles per hour uh max exit velocity and then there's some red stuff we'll get into the red stuff later but you can see his percentiles were very very good for the npb not mlb obviously but npb uh ops slug iso home run average walks but then you got chase rate you got strikeout rate you got whiff rate and you got outside zone contact uh yeah also 18 errors at third base he is a third baseman but he also plays outfield so the pros and cons right we talked about how good he was pros wise but the cons 26.7 strikeout rate 33.8 whiff rate 33.1 chase rate so he's a guy who's gonna strike out a lot a guy who's gonna miss on a lot of pitches but honestly that kind is what the NPB was like I mean Murakami had similar numbers and look how good look how good he turned out right uh but 18 errors at third base so if we want to put him at third base which we don't because we have Machado he's not great there right but he does play the outfield he played right field uh a little bit last year but he can play left field he can also play a little bit of first base so again we have we have room for him right but of course like i said a lot of errors so uh 2024 he had 29 errors 2025 only six and then 18 in 2026 so yeah swing and miss is obviously a huge problem for him to strike out right walk rate you all saw that stuff not great but Padres do need a left fielder this offseason so what is his market gonna look like right nine figure upside earning a lot of money posting fee 20% 17.5% basically what that means is the more he costs the more the Hanshin Tigers take as a cut his posting fee as they call it so if he's going to cost around 100 million that means we have to pay uh Hanshin Tigers about 17 million so in total it would cost us around 117 million in order to get him right so you can look at the posting fee and all that a fee is 19% of a 50 million deal uh 17 of a 100 million deal so it scales according to how much his contract is and that's just a one-time payment right not a yearly thing but this is paid by a team not from Sato's salary no signing no fee right uh and of course he has until December 1st to make that so it will be before any lockout happens which i think is a huge plus for that but again he's not gonna be cheap right he's definitely not gonna be cheap it's not like we're made of money our payroll tax allocation 22.78 million 22.78 million i can't read tax threshold committed salary so yeah Machado Bogart's hard keys 81.6 million dollars and that's not including you know Musgrove uh Darvish Cronenworth so obviously money isn't a big thing or isn't not a big thing for us you know what i mean uh so hopefully our new owners got some deep pockets because we are absolutely going to need them but of course there's more options in left field i mean we do have Randy Rosarina a free agent Ian Happ Seiya Suzuki Steven Kwan we could trade for but it'll be a free agent after 2027 so there are options out there right but the fans they want to splash right 619 Padres free agent hopes for 2027 Teruaki Sato is one of the most coveted free agents NPB triple crown winner all that stuff 28 in 2027 they can make him the primary left fielder he'll also give time at third base and DH and again he can play a little bit of first base Jose and A.J. Preller want to make a splash this is the guy right this is the guy and of course again below average at third base has been inconsistent with throws but he's cleaned it up a lot since 2024 he's a passable outfielder and he's looked pretty good there before he moved back to third base so you know why not right why not so Teraki Sato faces December one first lockout deadline so of course the lockout timeline he's expected to be posted early November so early next month 45 day window opens the CBA expires December 1st and the Padres near a deal with Saya so yeah i mean let's just say 45 days should be enough enough time for us to get him uh and then whatever happens with the lockout and the CBA negotiations it happens right but we could get a really solid guy again a risk i understand the risk but a really solid guy before anything too crazy happens in the MLB right of course it's going to be a rushed process uh if this graphic loads it'll get there it'll get there it'll get there that yeah so a somewhat rushed process for the biggest professional decision of Sato's career and the Tigers are reluctant to post their players early so we'll see what that does for them but you know it just begs the question for you guys should the Padres sign Sato yes yes sign him be no spend elsewhere or c only at the right price how much would you be willing to sign him i think he would be a good fit on this team there is somewhere he can fit nicely maybe even second base to be honest uh i just feel like if we want to make a move and really get back into the Japanese market i think this is a solid guy to go after there are other players i want to make videos about from the NPB but this is the biggest name so let me like i said let me let me know what you guys think uh i will learn how to speak and read again because i just forgot how to do that today i guess uh but let me know how you feel and as always thank you guys so much for watching please subscribe as always my computer is lagging please subscribe as always follow us on X Instagram Facebook Twitter stay digest thank you to our channel members remember just for awesome bonus features to have a fantastic rest of your day