Japanese baseball faces existential threat as Dodgers loom for teenage pitching star
His favorite player is Yoshinobu Yamamoto.He follows one major league team on Instagram: The Dodgers.And while people familiar with his situation insist he hasn’t made a decision, the widespread expectation around the industry is that 18-year-old Shoki Oda of Japan will end up with the Dodgers.If Oda sticks to the plan he unveiled earlier this month, the hard-throwing right-hander will do something no Japanese superstar before him has ever done by moving to the United States without first playing in Nippon Professional Baseball.The Japanese establishment is viewing the potential development as an existential threat to its domestic league, as no prospect of Oda’s caliber has ever signed with a major league organization as an amateur. What would NPB be without such players?Daisuke Matsuzaka played in the league.So did Yu Darvish.And Shohei Ohtani.And Roki Sasaki.In the case of Ohtani, he was close to signing with the Dodgers out of high school as a pitcher, only to be drafted by the Nippon-Ham Fighters, who talked him into signing with them by offering him a chance to be a two-way player.The Yomiuri Giants used their first-round selection in the recent NPB draft on Oda, perhaps thinking they could similarly change the mind of the Yokohama High product.With 22 Japan Series titles, the Giants are the most successful team in NPB history.Their new manager is Hideki Matsui, one of the most popular players in Japanese baseball history.But in reality, their efforts to convince Oda to stay in the country have the feel of a symbolic last stand.Something like this was bound to happen.The Dodgers have achieved their goal of “painting Japan blue,” as the triumphs of Ohtani, Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto have made them the country’s favorite major league team.But this goes beyond that.Over the last three decades, Japan has gone from treating Hideo Nomo as if he was a traitor for joining the Dodgers to wanting to see its best players compete in the world’s top league....