31 of 113 - The Largest Participant on Both Sides of the System
From the introduction of free agency in 1993 through 2025, there were 113 domestic free-agent moves to another NPB team. Yomiuri was the destination in 31 of them, about 27 % of the total. Hanshin and SoftBank share second place with 12 each, so Yomiuri's count is two and a half times theirs.
A team that signs a free agent must compensate the player's former team. Over the same period, compensation took the form of a player 42 times, and in 16 of those cases, about 38 %, the player came from Yomiuri. Yomiuri received a player as compensation only twice. Whether taking players or giving them up, Yomiuri is the largest participant in the system.
This article lists, in order, the 31 players Yomiuri signed as free agents and the compensation it paid for each. The system as a whole and the history of Yomiuri's big spending are left to the article on NPB free agency and the article on Yomiuri's free-agent issues.
How Compensation Works - Ranks, a 28-Player Protected List, and 40 Days
From 1993 to 2007, every free-agent move required compensation. Cash alone meant 1.2 times the player's previous salary; taking a player meant one player plus 0.8 times the salary. For a second or later free-agent move, both amounts were halved.
A ranking system took effect in 2008. Among the former team's Japanese players, those ranked first to third by previous salary are A, fourth to tenth are B, and 11th or lower are C, and only A and B players require compensation. For an A player, cash alone is 80 % of the previous salary, or one player plus 50 %. For a B player, cash alone is 60 %, or one player plus 40 %. C players move with no compensation, and foreign players are not ranked.
The signing team may protect players from being taken; the number fell in stages from 40 when the system began to 28 from 2004. Foreign players, the latest draft class, and players on developmental contracts cannot be taken even if left unprotected. The signing team must submit its list within two weeks of the contract being announced, and compensation must be completed within 40 days. As a rule, each team may sign no more than two A or B players.
The 31 Players Yomiuri Signed and the Compensation It Paid
The table lists the 31 free agents Yomiuri signed from 1993 to 2025. The year is the year the player exercised free-agent rights; he joined Yomiuri the following year. Ranks appear only from 2008, when the ranking system began. "Domestic" and "Overseas" indicate the type of free-agent right exercised.
| Year | Player | From | Type and rank | Compensation paid by Yomiuri |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Hiromitsu Ochiai | Chunichi | - | Cash |
| 1994 | Kazuhisa Kawaguchi | Hiroshima | - | Cash |
| 1994 | Katsumi Hirosawa | Yakult | - | Cash |
| 1995 | Hirofumi Kono | Nippon-Ham | - | Player: Tadayoshi Kawabe |
| 1996 | Kazuhiro Kiyohara | Seibu | - | Cash |
| 1999 | Kimiyasu Kudo | Daiei | - | Cash |
| 1999 | Akira Eto | Hiroshima | - | Cash |
| 2001 | Yukinaga Maeda | Chunichi | - | Player: Kazuhiro Hiramatsu |
| 2005 | Shigeki Noguchi | Chunichi | - | Player: Kohei Oda |
| 2005 | Kiyoshi Toyoda | Seibu | - | Player: Akira Eto |
| 2006 | Michihiro Ogasawara | Nippon-Ham | - | Cash |
| 2006 | Ken Kadokura | Yokohama | - | Player: Kimiyasu Kudo |
| 2009 | Shugo Fujii | Nippon-Ham | Domestic / C | None |
| 2011 | Shuichi Murata | Yokohama | Overseas / A | Player: Shugo Fujii |
| 2011 | Toshiya Sugiuchi | SoftBank | Domestic / A | Cash |
| 2013 | Kan Otake | Hiroshima | Domestic / A | Player: Ryuji Ichioka |
| 2013 | Yasuyuki Kataoka | Seibu | Domestic / B | Player: Ryota Wakiya |
| 2014 | Ryoji Aikawa | Yakult | Overseas / B | Player: Nobuyuki Okumura |
| 2014 | Tatsuhiko Kinjo | DeNA | Overseas / C | None |
| 2015 | Ryota Wakiya | Seibu | Domestic / C | None |
| 2016 | Shun Yamaguchi | DeNA | Domestic / B | Player: Kentaro Taira |
| 2016 | Masahiko Morifuku | SoftBank | Domestic / C | None |
| 2016 | Dai-Kang Yang | Nippon-Ham | Domestic / B | Cash |
| 2017 | Ryoma Nogami | Seibu | Domestic / B | Player: Isato Takagi |
| 2018 | Ginjiro Sumitani | Seibu | Overseas / B | Player: Tetsuya Utsumi |
| 2018 | Yoshihiro Maru | Hiroshima | Domestic / A | Player: Hisayoshi Chono |
| 2020 | Takayuki Kajitani | DeNA | Domestic / B | Player: Shunta Tanaka |
| 2020 | Shoichi Ino | DeNA | Domestic / C | None |
| 2024 | Takuya Kai | SoftBank | Domestic / B | Player: Yusuke Ito |
| 2025 | Go Matsumoto | Nippon-Ham | Domestic / B | Cash |
| 2025 | Takahiro Norimoto | Rakuten | Overseas / A | Player: Chiharu Tanaka |
Of the 31, 16 were compensated with a player, 10 with cash, and 5 required nothing as C-rank players. The table includes several NPB firsts. Tadayoshi Kawabe, sent to Nippon-Ham as compensation for Hirofumi Kono in 1995, was the first compensation player in NPB. Kimiyasu Kudo in 1999 was the first player in NPB to change teams on a second free-agent move, and by signing Shun Yamaguchi, Masahiko Morifuku and Dai-Kang Yang in 2016, Yomiuri became the first team to sign three free agents in one year.
Three times Yomiuri sent out, as compensation for a later signing, a player it had itself acquired through free agency. Akira Eto, signed in 1999, went to Seibu in 2005 as compensation for Kiyoshi Toyoda; Kudo, also signed in 1999, went to Yokohama in 2006 for Ken Kadokura; and Shugo Fujii, signed in 2009, went to Yokohama in 2011 for Shuichi Murata. Eto was the first compensation player who had earlier arrived as a free agent. Ryota Wakiya, sent to Seibu in 2013 as compensation for Yasuyuki Kataoka, returned to Yomiuri as a free agent in 2015, the first compensation player to come back that way.
Only five players left Yomiuri for other teams as free agents in the same period: Norihiro Komada (Yokohama) in 1993, Hiroki Kokubo (SoftBank) in 2006, Kazunari Tsuruoka (DeNA) and Saburo Omura (Lotte) in 2011, and Michihiro Ogasawara (Chunichi) in 2013. The only compensation players Yomiuri received were Shintaro Yoshitake for Kokubo and Takayuki Takaguchi for Omura.
Tetsuya Utsumi - A Three-Time Opening Day Starter Sent to Seibu
Tetsuya Utsumi, a left-hander, joined Yomiuri in the 2003 draft through the free-acquisition slot. He started on Opening Day three times, led the league in wins in 2011 with 18 and a 1.70 ERA, and did so again in 2012 with 15. He was the first left-hander in club history to lead the league in wins two years running, and he was named MVP of the 2012 Japan Series. He chaired the club's chapter of the players' association from 2010 to 2013 and went 133-101 over 15 seasons with Yomiuri.
On December 20, 2018, Yomiuri announced that Utsumi would move to Seibu as compensation for Ginjiro Sumitani (B rank), who had left Seibu by exercising his overseas free-agent right. NPB made the move official the next day. It was the first time in club history that a former Yomiuri Opening Day starter left as compensation. Utsumi chose the number 27, which Sumitani had worn at Seibu, saying he wanted to go "one step higher" and move "ahead of 26," his number at Yomiuri.
In 2019 a left forearm injury kept him out of the top team for the first time in his career, and he had surgery on October 24. He won against Lotte on September 2, 2020, his first win in 743 days, and reached his 135th career win against DeNA on June 9, 2021. He announced his retirement on August 16, 2022, finishing 18 seasons at 135-104 with a 3.24 ERA. After serving as Seibu's minor-league pitching coach in 2023, he returned to Yomiuri in 2024 as its pitching coach.
Hisayoshi Chono - The Homegrown Player Who Twice Refused the Draft, Sent to Hiroshima
Hisayoshi Chono refused a fourth-round pick by Nippon-Ham in 2006 and a second-round pick by Lotte in 2008 before joining Yomiuri as its first-round pick in 2009. The background is covered in the article on draft refusal incidents and the article on the players who refused the draft and ended up at Yomiuri. He was Rookie of the Year in 2010, won the batting title with a .316 average in 2011, led the league with 173 hits in 2012, and won three Best Nine awards and three Golden Gloves. In nine seasons with Yomiuri he played 1,209 games with 1,271 hits, 137 home runs and 500 RBIs.
On January 7, 2019, Yomiuri announced that Chono would move to Hiroshima as compensation for Yoshihiro Maru (A rank), who had left Hiroshima by exercising his domestic free-agent right. Coming after Utsumi, it meant Yomiuri had given up two homegrown players as compensation in a single winter. NPB made it official on January 23. Of the numbers 5 and 9 offered by Hiroshima, Chono chose 5, because 9 had been manager Koichi Ogata's number as a player and he wanted to leave it for Takayoshi Noma, who was expected to succeed Maru.
In four seasons with Hiroshima he played 296 games with 174 hits and 20 home runs. In 2020 his .440 average as a pinch hitter led the league, and on September 22 against Yomiuri he hit a three-run homer off Tomoyuki Sugano, completing home runs against every team. On November 2, 2022, his return to Yomiuri was announced in a trade reported as no-cost, a move under Article 105 of the Baseball Agreement. Hiroshima's head of baseball operations had suggested to Yomiuri that a player who refused two drafts to join Yomiuri should end his career in a Yomiuri uniform, and the clubs agreed. He went back to his old number 7. His estimated salary for 2023, his first season back with Yomiuri, was ¥20 million, a cut of ¥100 million, and that year he batted .259 with 6 home runs and 19 RBIs in 75 games.
What Yomiuri Did Within the System - Avoiding Compensation, Then Seeking the Abolition of Player Compensation
In 2016 Yomiuri signed Shun Yamaguchi from DeNA as a B-rank free agent, and his salary was announced as unchanged at an estimated ¥80 million. A free agent's salary for the following season is capped at its previous level, and exceeding it requires a written request citing special circumstances and the commissioner's approval. A Sankei Sports report on August 19, 2017 revealed that such an exception had been approved and that Yamaguchi's contract was worth about ¥250 million. The report came after Yamaguchi was suspended and penalized over an assault in July 2017.
In October 2017 Yomiuri released Shuichi Murata, who had regained his domestic free-agent right. General manager Yoshitaka Katori explained that the intent was to avoid a compensation obligation arising if Murata moved to another team. In November 2019, the same year Yomiuri sent Chono away as compensation, manager Tatsunori Hara called for abolishing player compensation "to bring back the brightness of free agency." SoftBank general manager Sugihiko Mikasa partly agreed, while Chunichi firmly opposed it as a proposal meant only to favor the proposer's own team. In December 2020 Yomiuri alumnus Kiyoshi Nakahata suggested replacing player compensation with the transfer of a draft pick the following year, and said that if it remained, developmental players should be eligible too. In November 2023 Sho Nakata opted out of his contract and was released, and Yomiuri let him go in a form that brought it no compensation.
The 28-player protected list is a number set by the system; whom to leave off it is the club's decision. The winter when Utsumi, a three-time Opening Day starter, and Chono, a former Rookie of the Year and batting champion, were left off was the winter Yomiuri signed Maru (A rank) and Sumitani (B rank) at the same time. It was Yomiuri that released a player to avoid a compensation obligation, and Yomiuri that called for abolishing player compensation. Before any debate on reforming the system, what Yomiuri has done within it should be laid out first.
This record has limits. How Utsumi and Chono came to be left unprotected is outside the scope of this article, and all salaries are press estimates. The table and counts come from a public list of free-agent moves, and Yomiuri's explanations of its protection decisions are not included.