NPB Player Movement Database

Kazuki Sugiyama is what scouts mean when they say the word "frame": 192 centimeters, 106 kilograms, and a fastball that sits in the upper 150s from a delivery that seems to arrive from somewhere above the scoreboard. He took the industrial route to Fukuoka — a corporate-league stint at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Hiroshima before the 2018 draft — and after years as a live arm without a job description, he seized the closer's role for the Hawks team that won it all in 2025.

He is also, famously, his own harshest critic. In April 2025, furious at one bad outing, he punched a dugout bench and broke his own left hand — a month-long lesson in the cost of caring too much, after which he returned to the late innings as if nothing had happened. The 2026 season has been less tidy than his preseason goal of an ERA beginning with zero, but no less revealing. As of September 4, Sugiyama has converted 27 saves in 46 appearances, striking out 67 in 44 innings with a 3.07 ERA. The 21 walks explain the turbulence; the strikeout total explains why the Hawks keep handing him the ninth. That intensity, attached to that fastball, is exactly the profile MLB bullpens spend every winter shopping for.