For four days at a high school in Northern Japan, Yusei Kikuchi held meetings and fielded questions from 12 Japanese baseball clubs and eight from MLB, including the Mariners, Yankees, and Rangers. This is what happens when you can throw a baseball 96 m.p.h. People want to talk.
The 18-year-old had used the word “undecided” about staying in his native Japan in late October 2009, leaving the door open to him skipping the amateur draft there and jumping right into MLB. With ten of the twelve teams seeing his skill and star potential and willing to take them with their first pick, they were not eager for him to depart.