Blue Jays free agent target: Teruaki Satō

It’s going to be a big off-season for the Toronto Blue Jays.

After coming oh-so-close to winning it all in 2025, the Blue Jays finished the 2026 season with a 79-83 record. A postseason berth was up for grabs, but a dismal September, despite a weak schedule, doomed their season.

Now it’s back to the drawing board for the 2027 season, if there is one of course. A lockout looms large for the league and the 2027 season is still up in the air. Still, the Blue Jays have clear needs this off-season, and plenty of candidates to fill those needs.

One of which, Teruaki Satō, would give the Blue Jays just a bit more power in their lineup. 

Teruaki Satō’s profile

The Blue Jays’ biggest needs this off-season is a power-hitting outfield and a second baseman, ideally with power as well. Satō fits the former, as the 27-year-old Nippon Professional Baseball star played both third base and the outfield in his career.

In the last few seasons, the Blue Jays have made an effort to recruit players either from or playing in the Pacific Rim. Just last off-season, the Jays signed another Japanese third baseman, Kazuma Okamoto, while also bringing in Cody Ponce from Korea. 

With extra international free agent signing bonus pool money the past two seasons, the Jays have signed players like Seojun Moon, Kwon Si-Woo, and Cheng-Lung Tsai through international free agency. And who could forget their pursuits of Shohei Ohtani and Rōki Sasaki in recent years?

You have to imagine that Satō will be a target for the Blue Jays whenever he’s posted this off-season, and for good reason as he fills two of their biggest needs: Power and an outfielder.

Playing for the Hanshin Tigers of NPB, Satō appeared in 143 games in 2026, slashing .306/.383/.609 with 39 home runs, along with an 11.1 BB% and 26.7 K%. His season was so strong in fact (196 wRC+), that Satō became the third triple crown winner in NPB since the turn of the millennium.

It was his second consecutive season where his power took a jump. Across his first four seasons in NPB, Satō often batted around the .260-.270 mark with anywhere between 16 and 24 home runs. Then in 2025, he hit a career-high 40 home runs while slashing .277/.345/.579. Not too shabby for a league that’s currently in a dead ball period.

Of course, MLB is a significantly better league than NPB, so it’s unlikely he’ll hit that well once he comes to North America. But a fair comparison can be had in Okamoto, who slashed .327/.416/.598 with 15 home runs in 293 plate appearances in his final season in NPB. His final fully healthy season was in 2024, slashing .280/.362/.501 with 27 home runs in 611 plate appearances, while his best season was in 2023, when he slashed .278/.374/.584 with 41 home runs in 589 plate appearances.

Okamoto had his ups and downs in his rookie campaign, but he was the only hitter in the Jays’ lineup with consistent slug. Over 156 games, the third baseman slashed .232/.310/.452 with 33 home runs in 636 plate appearances, with a 9.3 BB% and 28.8 K% for a 113 wRC+ and 3 fWAR.

Time will tell if Satō will adapt as well as Okamoto, but there’s potential that he’ll have a similar type of season as the two are similar hitters.

Okamoto had a solid defensive season at the hot corner and projects as the Jays’ third baseman for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, Satō is capable of playing in the outfield as well, appearing in the outfield in 269 NPB games over the course of his six seasons. He profiles mainly as a right fielder, which would complicate things depending on Addison Barger’s health.

There are plenty of notable outfielders set to become free agents five days after the conclusion of the World Series, but none have quite the raw power that Satō does.