Tomoyuki Sugano
| Tomoyuki Sugano | |||
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Sugano with the Yomiuri Giants
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| Yomiuri Giants – No. 19 | |||
| Pitcher | |||
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Born: October 11, 1989 Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan |
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| NPB debut | |||
| 2013, for the Yomiuri Giants | |||
| NPB statistics (through 2016) |
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| Win-Loss | 44-28 | ||
| Earned run average | 2.34 | ||
| Strikeouts | 592 | ||
| WHIP | 1.073 | ||
| Teams | |||
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| Medal record | ||
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| Men's baseball | ||
Representing  Japan
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| 2015 WBSC Premier12 | ||
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2015 Tokyo | Team |
Tomoyuki Sugano (菅野 智之 Sugano Tomoyuki?, born October 11, 1989 in Kanagawa Prefecture) is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher for the Yomiuri Giants in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball.
In 2010, he recorded the fastest pitch by a Japanese college pitcher at 157 km/h (98 mph).
Due to his performance as pitcher for Tokai University (37-4, 0.57 ERA), Sugano was a top pitching prospect for the October 2011 draft. Prior to the draft selection, he declared his desire to join the Yomiuri Giants and play under the guidance of his uncle, the present Giants manager Tatsunori Hara. It therefore came as a shock when the Fighters also decided to select him as their first pick. The two teams fought it out via lottery, but the Fighters drew the lucky straw in the end, to the surprise and disappointment of Manager Hara and the Giants for they had assumed no other team would dare pick Sugano.
Both Sugano's father and grandfather were disappointed because they were not notified of the Fighters' intention to draft him, the latter even quoted saying it was a violation of human rights. The Fighters did admit to having intentionally kept their intention to draft Sugano unannounced, and apologized for the surprise and the commotion they caused.
After long consideration and deliberation with his family, Sugano finally announced on November 21 his decision to turn down the Fighters' offer and instead take the year off and re-enter the 2012 draft. "I may be taking a longer route (to becoming a professional ballplayer), but my childhood dream (of playing for the Giants) was stronger," he said, hinting at his intention to wait until the Giants win the rights to negotiate with him. He also mentioned that he wasn't as upset about not being informed by the Fighters ahead of time that they might select him, but rather because they promised they wouldn't select him. Only two players in NPB history have turned down the Fighters: Shinji Kuroda in 1976 and Ikuo Takayama in 1980.
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Wikipedia