Kona Takahashi To Return To NPB For 2026 Season

2:20PM: Feinsand reports that Takahashi had offers from three Major League clubs.  7 News Boston’s Ari Alexander heard during the Winter Meetings that the Astros were interested in Takahashi, but it isn’t known if Houston was one of the teams who made the righty a formal offer.

1:30PM: Kona Takahashi’s 45-day posting window for finding a contract with MLB teams closes tomorrow, but The Athletic’s Will Sammon reports that the right-hander will instead return to Japan and the Seibu Lions.

There wasn’t much buzz about Takahashi’s bid to join a big league team, and reports began to emerge a few days ago that returning to Nippon Professional Baseball was a distinct possibility for the 28-year-old.  MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand and Brian Murphy reported that Takahashi received just one offer from a Major League team, and it apparently wasn’t enticing enough for the righty to make the jump.

Takahashi doesn’t yet qualify for full international free agency.  Feinsand and Murphy suggested that he could pursue a multi-year deal with the Lions that includes an opt-out clause next winter, so Takahashi could freely pursue another contract with a Major League team.  Sammon writes that Takahashi and the Lions are indeed discussing such a contract — though the Lions still control Takahashi’s rights, the club was already willing to post him this offseason, so a longer-term deal with opt-outs somewhat formalizes the situation.  It does mean that the Lions wouldn’t be able to receive a posting fee, which would’ve been 20% of any contract worth $25MM of less in guaranteed money.

The general expectation was that Takahashi’s foray into the posting system was going to result in a low-level guarantee at best, or perhaps even a contract without any guaranteed money.  Takahashi has a solid 3.39 ERA over 1199 career innings with the Lions, and achieved success by inducing grounders at roughly a 50 percent rate and limiting walks.  The big red flag for MLB scouts was undoubtedly Takahashi’s lackluster 17.17% career strikeout rate.

It might take a particularly strong 2026 NPB season for Takahashi to elevate his stock in the eyes of big league scouts, but he’ll still be relatively young (turning 30 in February 2027) in advance of what would be his first MLB campaign.  With another year of good results and eating innings, Takahashi might draw more attention as a back-end rotation arm or perhaps as a multi-inning reliever next winter, should he end up opting out of his next contract.