Padres Sign A SNEAKY Good Player...

The Padres have made their first off-season move as this player has been signed to a minor league deal. Who is he? Is he any good? Should we be super excited? Let's talk about it. Hi, welcome back to another episode of Padres Digest with your host, Andrew. Today we have some signings to talk about. Well, one signing. We have made our first off-season move. Nothing huge, nothing crazy, but I think this might be a very, very solid pickup. and i think you guys should be excited for it so let's talk about it right before we get too deep into the video please subscribe as always follow us on X Instagram Facebook Padres Digest so andrew who did we sign stop leaving us in the dust in the in the know and tell us well here you go Padres signed Japanese pitcher Tatsuya Nogami who is Tatsuya Nogami well get there be patient but he is a right-handed pitcher at age 20 years old born January 6 2006 in Hita Japan he signed a minor league contract yesterday he is six foot three 190 pounds throws right-handed he is from Osaka Sangyo University semi hardball team and he has zero NPB or pro experience so your first thought is why would we sign a guy who has zero pro experience at all let me get there let me get let me chill out let me get there let me get there okay so how did he get here so he added about 10 kilograms through self-directed weight training he stepped away from baseball for a stretch back pain a factor did not play college ball in 2024 and has not filed for the NPB draft so he added a little weight might have hurt himself a little bit but that was a few years ago and now he is back playing so yeah he has played recently uh his Kiyose cup start which september first quarterfinal against Nihon university he threw a complete game nine innings pitch at 143 pitches still somehow lost uh and then Nihon went on to win the tournament so boo boo you how dare you beat our king uh but yes okay here's the stats that you're all wondering Tatsuya Nogami posted a 1.21 ERA and semi hardball yes that is very very good also if you're wondering what semi hardball is i had to google this but it's a hybrid form of japanese baseball that bridges the gap between traditional leather hardballs and japanese rubber ball the ball features an interior construction similar to a standard hardball uh with the you know the layers and the cord all that but it's wrapped in a natural rubber outer coating instead of leather leather leather i said that weird uh so if you were curious that's what that means but let's look at the stats right so in his 2025 spring year 2.05 ERA 26 innings pitched 27 strikeouts so very good right but it gets better 2025 fall 52 innings pitched 1.20 ERA 80 strikeouts and 52 innings pitched 80 strikeouts that is very impressive and it gets better because in the spring he had 25 innings pitched a 0.36 ERA a sub 1 ERA with 54 strikeouts so overall in 104 innings pitched he has a 161 strikeouts and a 1.21 ERA that is very very good right and so far in the fall it's ongoing but he has four appearances 20 innings pitched and a sub 1 ERA last time out october 8th he had 10 scoreless innings against Kyoto Sangyo season is in progress of course but strikeouts per nine innings 13.9 walks plus hit by pitch per nine three so obviously three walks isn't amazing it isn't horrible but it's not great it's not bad it's fine right but 13 we'll say 14 strikeouts per nine innings is exactly what you want to see from a pitcher like this right his top speed in a game was 155 kilometers per hour in america that is 96 miles per hour that is yeehaw metrics uh pitch mix and size he's a fastball around 93 to 96 miles per hour per uh fair and hold uh splitter slider curveball cutter 63 190 per milb so of course not pro ball semi hardball but still these are impressive stats and i want you to appreciate them uh but we kind of saw this on semi-hardball career already those are numbers once again very very good right and fall so far also pretty pretty good so the velocity we talked about high school was at 139 then 142 then 144 kilometers per hour college top speed 155 156 per hour uh and 155 would be 96 miles per hour so 139 142 144 i don't know we'll say low 90s right but 156 will be around 97 miles per hour so he passed the old semi-hardball mark of 154 kilometers per hour per sports navi so he is throwing it harder and harder every single year which is exactly what you want to see from a developing player right now there's not a lot of info on him because he's still you know a college player in japan that has no pro innings so sources do vary 6 3 190 per milb but 6 2 175 in some older high school notes fastball 90 miles per hour in nbc's report but 93 96 and some newer reports stats are via draft report signing details are via MiLB so of course he still has plenty of growing to do uh he might get bigger i don't know we'll have to see but from what i see he's good right so how much did he cost us barely anything padres are signing 20 year old right hander for 300k uh so less than a mil less than a half a mil 300k that's a lot for me but you know nothing for Kwanzaa Jones and Jose Feliciano uh and we talked about all that stuff already but he has room to add velocity also has a splitter and multiple breaking balls around 79 to 84 miles per hour so good right he's a good player so Tachi Nogami joins the padres pitching depth what does that look like for them well to be honest it's a like uh it's likely a low cost of developmental prospect for the padres i can't read so an experiment basically it's an experiment for 300k i think it's a very worthy experiment something i am very happy to take uh and scouts have been watching him so on october 8th he had four mlb clubs in attendance the phillies cardinals were among them uh and guess what out of those teams were the ones who signed him so it's not like he's a nobody i mean people were looking out for him uh but we actually pulled the trigger and actually got him right so you know he's good he's good right but we don't know much about him we don't know what how he's gonna turn out we don't know if he's gonna be any good his affiliate and level not announced so he could start at rookie ball he might start at i don't know Lake Elsinore zero pro innings of course like i keep saying like he he's an unknown he's an unknown right and he's still gonna be starting games for Osaka Sangyo so we'll have to see how it goes right but i do genuinely like this move i think it is it is a gamble but i think for 300k it's absolutely a gamble worth taking he could be i don't know the next Yamamoto or he could be Roki Sasaki who has been pretty eh but i think it's absolutely worth the risk and i i am excited to see where he goes uh and i hope we can see him in the minors uh and maybe one day in the majors and then hopefully AJ Preller doesn't trade him away for some overrated old person prospect uh but i i i like it i think you should like it and if you don't like it let me know so here is my question for you guys what is Nogami to you is he a depth arm and nothing more is he a real lottery ticket or is it still too early to say you want to get more data before you make any conclusions you let me know how you feel but thank you guys so much for watching please subscribe as always follow us on X instagram facebook Padres Digest thank you to our channel members join memberships for awesome bonus features and have a fantastic wonderful amazing great rest of your day go padres thank god the dodgers got swept am i petty yes i am okay goodbye