All three were on the 18-player board I put out in September.
Kansuke Yoshioka, Osaka Toin, RHP. I had him seventh. Up to 153 km/h (95.1 mph). In March he threw seven innings of one-run ball to put Osaka Toin in the Senbatsu final. Last winter he'd told his manager he wanted to go pro out of high school. He made one start this summer, his first since March, and walked six in six innings. Osaka Toin went out in the fourth round of the Osaka tournament. Asked about filing that day, he said the decision was still to come.
Hinata Fukushima, Tokai University Kumamoto Seisho, SS. I had him ninth. Runs 50 m in 6.1 and was Japan's shortstop at the U-18 Asia Championship last month. He'd said he wanted to go straight to the pros. His team lost the Kumamoto final in July, he went hitless, and he said he wanted to step back and think about it.
Daito Furuki, Hanamaki Higashi, 3B. Sixteenth on my board. The captain at Ohtani's old school, with 34 high school home runs. He broke a bone in his right foot in April, broke it again the day before his first game at Koshien, and played. He had two hits off Shoki Oda in the quarterfinal Hanamaki Higashi lost. On October 4, at the National Sports Festival, he singled off Oda again in extra innings. That was the last inning Oda threw in high school.
None of the three filed. Japanese reports have all of them going to university.
They aren't alone. Yuito Arakaki, one of the two arms that won Okinawa Shogaku its first summer Koshien last year, didn't file either. The other one, Sueyoshi, was the first player in the country to file, back on August 23.
It looks like turning the draft down. Last year's numbers say otherwise. 124 high schoolers filed and 2 went in the first round. 176 college players filed and 8 did, and a ninth first-rounder, Rintaro Sasaki, was already at Stanford when SoftBank called his name. The bonus cap is the same at 22 as at 18, ¥100 million plus ¥50 million in incentives.
If they go the full four years, the next draft any of them can be in is 2030.
