Jackson Rutledge Signs With NPB’s Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks

Former first-round pick Jackson Rutledge is continuing his career in Japan. The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Nippon Professional Baseball announced this week that they’ve signed the former Nationals top prospect (hat tip to Yuri Karasawa of Yakyu Cosmopolitan).

Washington selected the now-27-year-old Rutledge in the first round of the 2019 draft. He spent several years ranked among the Nats’ most promising farmhands but never found his stride in the majors. Obviously, there wasn’t a minor league season in 2020, which set back Rutledge’s development. He then missed more than half the 2021 campaign due to shoulder troubles that limited him to 36 1/3 minor league frames. He spent another month on the 2022 injured list due to an undisclosed issue.

Although Rutledge has been mostly healthy since, the results haven’t been there. He’s pitched briefly in parts of four big league seasons but has a 6.29 ERA and just a 19% strikeout rate in 103 major league frames. Rutledge has had solid command at the game’s top level (7.3% walk rate), but he’s been quite prone to walks in the minors, evidenced by a career 13.4% walk rate in 196 1/3 innings at the Triple-A level, where he carries a career 5.55 ERA.

Rutledge pitched 1 1/3 innings with the Nats earlier this season and was rocked for seven runs in that lone appearance. The Nats designated him for assignment, at which point the Phillies claimed him. He didn’t log any big league work with Philadelphia and pitched only 10 minor league innings — missing some time along the way with an undisclosed injury — before being granted his release late last month in order to pursue the opportunity overseas.

Certainly, Rutledge’s pro career hasn’t gone as he’d hoped when he was selected 17th overall and commanded a sizable $3.45MM signing bonus back in 2019. However, he won’t turn 28 until next April and still averages better than 94 mph on his sinker. It’s not out of the question that he can reinvent himself overseas and make a comeback a couple years down the road.

Rutledge’s original club, the Nationals, showed a blueprint to follow this year with their signing of Foster Griffin — a former first-round pick who dominated in two-plus seasons in NPB before returning stateside on a one-year, $5.5MM deal. Griffin, traded to Cleveland at the deadline, has been outstanding in 2026 and will return to the market as a free agent in position to land a notable multi-year deal. That’s the ideal outcome for Rutledge, though a lot will need to break right for him to get there. For now, he’s in position to command some guaranteed money and set himself up for a more lucrative one-year deal for the full season in 2027 — if he pitches well down the stretch with the Hawks.