When the Red Sox were rumored as potential Kodai Senga suitors back in December, I wrote about the raw deal that players from Japan and Korea inevitably receive from Western fans and media. No matter what they achieve in Asia — up to and including proving themselves as possibly the most talented player on Earth, as Shohei Ohtani did in his final seasons with the Fighters — they are completely ignored by the West unless and until they decide to come to MLB. And when they do decide to come over, we unquestioningly assume that their success won’t cleanly translate to Major League Baseball.
So Hey, What If Masataka Yoshida Is A Superstar?
