The Giants are back in the familiar spot of being tied to a pair of Japanese pitchers, and this time the calendar is working against them.
Hiromi Itoh and Kaima Taira have both been posted by their NPB teams, and MLB has set December 1 as the cutoff for those players to sign before the lockout. That leaves San Francisco with a narrow window if it wants to turn long-running interest into an actual deal.
This is hardly a new storyline for the Giants. Every offseason seems to bring another round of buzz around a pitcher from Japan, whether it was Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga when he was posted, or Tatsuya Imai last offseason. Now Itoh and Taira are the latest names to surface, and the Giants are once again in the mix.
Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Giants have scouted both pitchers. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic reported months ago that San Francisco is expected to pursue Itoh. The question now is whether that interest turns into a signing.
The Giants have often been the team linked to these pitchers only to watch them land elsewhere, usually with the Los Angeles Dodgers. That history has made this kind of pursuit feel familiar, but San Francisco’s need for pitching is real enough that it has little choice but to stay in the hunt.
Itoh is coming off a 2026 season with the Nippon Ham Fighters in which he posted a 3.18 ERA across 26 starts. He struck out 159 batters in 173 innings and walked only 34, a profile that could appeal to a Giants team looking for pitchers who can consistently throw strikes.
Taira, meanwhile, is 27 and put together a strong season for the Seibu Lions. He finished with a 1.36 ERA in 23 starts, logged 146 innings, struck out 141 and walked 45. He’s listed at 5-foot-8 and roughly 210 pounds, with a compact build that is somewhat reminiscent of Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson.
Of course, there’s always some risk attached to these moves. Not every highly regarded pitcher from Japan arrives with the same certainty as Yamamoto. Last offseason, Imai was projected by many to command a massive deal, but he wound up signing a three-year, $54 million contract with the Houston Astros and finished with a shaky 4.93 ERA.
The market will decide how teams view Itoh and Taira, but the Giants are clearly in the conversation. With the deadline approaching, San Francisco doesn’t have much time to wait.
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