18-year-old japanese pitcher could play in the majors

Yusei Kikuchi is an 18-year-old Japanese pitcher who can throw a 90-plus-mile-per-hour fastball, with an insane career ahead of him... and a huge decision to make about where that career is going to take him: A Left-Hander Must Choose Between Japan and the U.S.

By October, Kikuchi must choose whether he wants to pursue playing baseball in Japan or the United States. Signing at home would rule him out of a move to the U.S. for as many as nine years. Choosing the American majors may open the door to a stream of amateurs making the leap to American baseball.

American teams have signed more than three dozen of Japan's best players since 1994, often at much higher salaries. To compensate Japanese teams, Nippon Professional Baseball madates that players with fewer than nine years experience can go to the U.S. only if their team auctions their rights.

But Kikuchi's departure would be different. As a senior at Hanamaki Higashi High School in the northern prefecture of Iwate, he isn't subject to those rules. My, how things change when we're talking about a kid with a 94mph arm. But he has to decide soon, because the Japanese draft is coming up.

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