Right-hander Kaima Taira, star for the Seibu Lions of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, is drawing widespread interest after being posted for major league clubs. Bruce Levine of 670 The Score in Chicago reports that both the Cubs and White Sox have “strong” interest in Taira. They were both planning to meet with agent Scott Boras this week, though the Boras Corporation of course represents a large number of this winter’s free agents beyond just Taira. Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes that while the Padres have some level of interest in all three NPB stars who were posted this winter — slugger Teruaki Sato and righty Hiromi Itoh being the others — the Friars seem particularly focused on Taira.
The Blue Jays were known to have scouted Taira extensively this past season and have carried their interest into the offseason, per Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi. Toronto has done “lots of background work” on Taira, per the report. Davidi adds that Taira isn’t traveling to North America to meet with interested clubs in person but is conducting frequent Zoom calls with teams major league clubs. That presumably includes Toronto, though it’s not clear whether the two parties have formally spoken or are still lining up a time to do so. The Giants also have some interest in Taira and have discussed him internally, according to John Shea of the San Francisco Standard.
That early list of teams is surely just a sampling of clubs who have interest in signing the 26-year-old Taira (27 this weekend). The right-hander was scouted by upwards of half the teams in Major League Baseball throughout the 2026 season as he posted dominant results out of the Lions’ rotation in Japan. The Mets, Angels, Rangers, Yankees and Mariners are all known to have scouted Taira this past season as well, though the latter two teams are quite deep in rotation arms and aren’t necessarily likely to jump into Taira’s market.
Taira is an oddity in every sense of the word. Listed at just 5’8″ and 209 pounds, he’s built like Alejandro Kirk but sits 95-97 mph on his four seamer and can ramp the pitch up into the triple digits. He just posted a 1.36 ERA, 24.8% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate and 48.5% ground-ball rate in 146 innings this past season in Japan. Scouts who spoke to MLBTR about Taira have indicated that he holds his velocity deep into starts and will often work on the low end of his velo early in games before ramping up in the late innings when he’s ready to empty the proverbial tank.
The numbers and velocity scream “future big league starter,” but Taira’s body type is almost unheard of for a major league pitcher. Marcus Stroman is the closest recent example — a 5’8″, 170-pound righty of whom many teams were skeptical as a starter early in his professional career. Stroman is an anomaly, however. Few players of this height and build have even pitched in the majors, let alone held up through the rigors of a starting pitcher’s workload.
Some teams will surely hope to deploy Taira as a reliever. He’s worked out of the bullpen in all but two of his NPB seasons. The Lions moved him to the rotation in 2023 and found great success (2.40 ERA in 150 frames), but he suffered an injury after five starts in 2024, missed several months, and returned as a reliever. He was back in the ‘pen come 2025, but the Lions again stretched him out to great effect in 2026. The evaluators who spoke to MLBTR about Taira over the past month suggested that even though some teams will hope to plug him into the ‘pen, he’s extremely likely to prioritize signing as a starting pitcher.
Either Chicago team makes good sense as a landing spot. The Cubs are no strangers to signing Japanese stars (e.g. Seiya Suzuki, Shota Imanaga, Kosuke Fukudome) and saw an entire rotation’s worth of arms reach free agency at season’s end. They’ll be without Cade Horton early next year as he recovers from April UCL surgery, and they received nothing from Justin Steele in 2026 following his own UCL procedure early in the 2025 campaign, as he experienced setbacks along the way. Righty Ben Brown recently underwent spinal surgery as well, further limiting the Cubs’ supply of starters.
The White Sox, meanwhile, have already declared adding to the rotation their top priority. GM Chris Getz revealed that powerhouse reliever Grant Taylor will move into the rotation in 2027, and the South Siders have a smattering of interesting mid-rotation arms: Sean Burke, Noah Schultz, Davis Martin and Anthony Kay among them. It seems likely they’ll add at least one established major league starter to the fray, but they have more than enough payroll space to make two prominent rotation additions. The Sox haven’t been big players in the market for NPB stars in the past but broke that trend last year with their surprise signing of slugger Munetaka Murakami.
As for the Padres, they touch base on virtually every star player who becomes available, whether that’s an established big leaguer or a high-end player from NPB or the Korea Baseball Organization. Taira is no exception, but it’s of note that Acee suggests Taira is the focus over Sato and Itoh. The Friars have a skeleton crew in the rotation right now, with Joe Musgrove standing as the only starting pitcher on their staff who’s previously worked a full, successful season in a big league rotation. Musgrove, however, missed all of the 2025-26 seasons due to injury and only returned to the mound during the 2026 postseason. There’s no telling what to expect from him next year.
San Diego also has Randy Vasquez, JP Sears, Jhony Brito and newly signed Ryan Weiss in the running for innings. It’s possible Yu Darvish will be back after missing the 2026 season, but he’s now 40 years old and has mulled retirement. The Padres are losing Michael King, Nick Pivetta, Casey Mize and Robbie Ray to the open market. They badly need to bring in some innings. It’s already known that they’d like to re-sign King and Pivetta, in particular, but Taira adds another interesting name to the team’s list of potential targets.
The Giants, similarly, need several arms. Adrian Houser is their nominal third starter behind Logan Webb and Landen Roupp. They lost four young pitchers — Carson Whisenhunt, Trevor McDonald, Hayden Birdsong, Blade Tidwell — to Tommy John surgery during the 2026 season. It’ll be a surprise if they don’t add at least two new rotation arms this winter.
Taira’s posting window opened on Nov. 1. Since the looming MLB lockout won’t pause the negotiation window for stars who’ve been posted by their NPB, KBO and CPBL teams, Taira is a lock to sign before the current collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59pm ET on Dec. 1. In addition to whatever guarantee he and Boras negotiate, Taira’s new team will also owe a posting fee to the Lions. That sum, which is in addition to his guarantee, is equal to 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, plus 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any guaranteed money thereafter. Future earnings under the contract, whether via incentives or options, are also subject to the posting fee system once that money become guaranteed.
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