Jo Hsi Hsu Signs With NPB’s Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks

Taiwanese right-hander Jo Hsi Hsu has signed with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. It’s a three-year deal with incentives worth more than $9.6MM USD. Yihsuan Wang of Yahoo Taiwan relayed the club announcement. Hat tip to CPBL Stats for relaying the details in English.

The 25-year-old righty has turned some heads with his results in the CPBL. He has thrown 305 innings for the Wei Chuan Dragons, including 114 innings in 2025 with a 2.05 earned run average. He struck out 28% of batters faced this year while limiting walks to a tiny 3.3% rate.

It was reported last week that the Dragons would make him available via the posting system and that Hsu was considering a jump to Major League Baseball, though a move to NPB seemed more probable.

A scouting report from Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan of FanGraphs suggested that many MLB clubs would likely view Hsu as a reliever. They then wondered if that would lead him to Japan in an attempt to further prove himself as a capable starter against a higher level of competition.

Hsu’s motivations aren’t known but he will indeed head to Japan. He is still quite young, so perhaps a move to North America will become viable down the road if he puts up good numbers for the Hawks.

Photo courtesy of Jasen Vinlove, Imagn Images