Overview
The NPB Draft (shinjin sentaku kaigi) is the meeting at which the 12 clubs divide up the right to negotiate with amateur players. It is held in autumn, in recent years in late October. Introduced in 1965, it exists to keep the best prospects from pooling at the wealthiest clubs and to balance strength across the league. In the first round every club submits the name it wants at the same time, and when several clubs land on the same player a lottery decides who gets the negotiating rights; the clubs that lose the draw move straight on to their next choice, so the first round proceeds through several draws. From the second round the order is fixed rather than bid for: the second round runs from the club that finished lowest in the season just completed, the third round runs in the opposite direction from the top club, and the direction alternates with each round after that. Which league is listed first depends on which one holds priority, and that priority switches between the two leagues every year: the last-place club of the league with priority picks first, then the last-place club of the other league, and the two leagues alternate from there. The Central League held priority in 2025.
Notable first-round picks
In the 1966 draft several clubs put in first-round bids for Yutaka Enatsu, and Hanshin won the lottery and the negotiating rights. Enatsu went on to strike out 401 batters in 1968, a single-season figure that still stands as the NPB record. The same pattern holds today: in the 2006 high school draft, Rakuten, Yokohama, Orix and Nippon-Ham all bid for Masahiro Tanaka, and Rakuten won the draw; in 2018, four clubs including Chunichi bid for Akira Neo. Competition concentrates on high school players with the most room to grow, and because a single draw can redirect a career, the room and the broadcast draw heavy attention every year.
How the system has changed
The format has been rebuilt more than once. From 2005 the draft was split, with high school players handled on separate dates from college and corporate-league players; that arrangement lasted a few years before the unified single-day format used today returned in 2008. The revisions around that period also removed the kibou-waku (formerly the free-selection slot), which in practice let a player choose his club. The development draft, for players signed outside the active roster limit, follows the main meeting, and those picked begin on development contracts. Some work their way onto the active roster and become front-line pitchers, as Kodai Senga did, so the development round has become a way for clubs to cover ground the main rounds leave open.