In an Orioles clubhouse full of first-round picks, some of whom enjoyed the thrill of being drafted No. 1 overall to validate a lifetime of hard work and almost all of whom were able to create an enduring memory with their families around the event, there’s one former top pick whose experience ran counter to that.

Tomoyuki Sugano was regarded as the next can’t-miss Japanese pitcher, and even flirted with coming straight to the United States when he was finishing up at Tokai University in Tokyo in 2011. He was a first-round pick that year — and then again the next year after he didn’t sign.

Sugano, through interpreter Yuto Sakurai, called the entire experience “devastating.” We know every top draftee in every sport has a unique story. Sugano’s starts with the draft itself.

The first round of the Nippon Professional Baseball draft works differently than any in the U.S. Any team can bid on a player, and if there are multiple bids on the same player, a lottery is held to determine who can negotiate with the player.

Sugano’s uncle, Tatsunori Hara, managed the Yomiuri Giants and was a legend with the club, and they announced Sugano would be their top pick that year with the expectation other clubs would honor it. Sugano said he never told any other club to avoid picking him, but it seemed understood.

“It’s kind of a hidden rule where you don’t really say anything, because my uncle was pretty big over there and naturally, people kind of knew where I was going,” Sugano said. “I obviously didn’t tell the teams not to pick me, but I think everybody knew.”

Despite that, the Nippon Ham Fighters bid for Sugano to create a lottery with the Giants, and ultimately won. Sugano’s decision became a major story.

“Afterwards, wherever I went, the media just followed,” he said. “There was no such thing as privacy at that time.”

Ultimately, his family ties won out. Sugano declined to sign with the Nippon Ham Fighters, and though he says there was a “pretty high possibility” he would have come straight to the U.S. at that time, it would have been complicated.

After Junichi Tazawa spurned the NPB draft and signed with the Boston Red Sox in 2008, the league created a rule banning players who make similar decisions from returning to NPB for five years after their U.S. career ends, all but preventing the chance to return home to play at any point.

Sugano ultimately didn’t feel like he had the option to jump right to MLB. With the so-called Tazawa Rule, that path “wasn’t realistic for me,” he said.

That’s not to say his reality at the time was much fun, either. He was barred from participating in games or practices at Tokai, so as essentially a fifth-year senior, he was relegated to an entire year of exclusively private live batting practice sessions. The world as he knew it moved on without him.

“If I were to pick one word, ‘loneliness’ is the thing,” he said. “Everybody was playing or practicing except for myself.”

A year later, he reentered the draft and signed with the Giants to play for his uncle — the Fighters used their top pick in 2012 for Shohei Ohtani instead. Sugano’s career wasn’t derailed in the least. He was a three-time Central League MVP, most recently in 2024, an eight-time All-Star, and a two-time winner of the Eiji Sawamura Award for NPB’s top starting pitcher.

He’s settled in nicely in his stateside debut for the Orioles, with a 4.44 ERA and a 1.30 WHIP in 18 starts. It’s quite a transition, both on and off the field, to come to the U.S. as he has with the Orioles, but Sugano uses that draft experience as a barometer for what challenging really is.

“That was actually my toughest experience throughout my career, so anything tougher that comes, I’ll look back and think how tough it was back then,” Sugano said. “Whatever comes to me doesn’t feel that tough.”

While the Tazawa Rule no longer exists, Sugano feels Japanese amateurs should have more of an avenue to come to the U.S. instead of entering the NPB draft.

“I know a lot of college students would want to directly come over here as opposed to playing in Japan,” he said. “So, there’s some work to be done.”

On the pod

Paul and I dug into the Orioles’ draft, including who they took in the first round as well as what they didn’t: pitching. It’s incredibly overdone at this point, but we went over what they like in the draft, how this group provides it and the broader context of this year’s picks. It serves as a good listening companion to my column, which requires only slightly less than an hour to read.

Ballpark chatter

“I don’t think anybody going into the season thought we were going to be in the situation we are now. But it is what it is. It doesn’t help to dwell on that.”

— Jordan Westburg on the Orioles’ first half.

I imagine what’s hardest for those in the Orioles clubhouse, given it kind of irks me and it doesn’t have anything to do with me, is how much the Orioles’ present form is colored by the first eight or so weeks of the season.

That was a bad couple of losses this weekend, and even as they’ve started playing better, they’re losing games they shouldn’t or falling in ignominious fashion. But it doesn’t feel fair to me to say a club that bottomed out at 16-34 and has been 27-18 since then is the same bad Orioles. That doesn’t matter in the long run — you are what your record says you are at the end of September — but shedding that stigma is good motivation for this team in the second half.

By the numbers

2.94

Trevor Rogers deserved to have the good start against the Marlins this weekend, lowering his ERA to 1.53 and striking out a season-high eight batters. Six starts in, though, it’s worth noting he’s outperforming his expected stats quite significantly.

His expected batting average against (.225) and expected slugging percentage (.340) are both higher than the actual .154 and .195. Again, there’s no quibbling with either of those. It’s just something to keep in the back of your mind — and dare I say, an indicator that Rogers’ value feels like it’s at its peak entering this trade deadline and the Orioles could choose to cash in on their investment to recoup more than what they gave up last summer.

Just imagine.

Talent pipeline

Creed Willems, a 22-year-old catcher drafted in 2021 and signed for $1 million, is heating back up at Double-A Chesapeake.

He entered June with an .846 OPS, seven home runs, and just a 16.7% strikeout rate, then homered once with a .460 OPS and a 21% strikeout rate in June. With a massive home run to cap a two-hit day Sunday, he’s on an eight-game hitting streak and has a 1.147 OPS with just four strikeouts in 34 at bats in July. Willems has gotten better every year since that draft, and having a .780 OPS with 10 home runs at the All-Star break at his age in Double-A is something worth noting.

For further reading

🔄 Breaking down the Baker trade: It feels like the Bryan Baker trade is going to be a fascinating one to look back on for the Orioles over the rest of this decade. Here’s what I made of it at the time.

🎶 A song with a deeper meaning: Andy had a cool story about Charlie Morton’s connection to Jason Isbell here. Sportswriters love both Charlie Morton and Jason Isbell. They’re right up there with Marriott properties.

🗣️ Rubenstein speaks: It was nice to get David Rubenstein’s thoughts on things this week, even if it was all rather predictable.