Kodai Senga's big personality not lost in translation
New York Mets pitcher Kodai Senga laughs at an introductory press conference at Citi Field on Monday. Credit: Corey Sipkin
Kodai Senga sat in a crowded room of reporters, cameras clicking with his every move, wearing his new jersey — No. 34, chosen, at his behest, by Mets fans via an online poll. With a smile, he peered down at the paper in front of him and, in halting but excellent English, introduced himself to Flushing.
“Hi, I am Kodai Senga of the New York Mets,” he said. “I’m very happy and excited to be in the Big Apple and join such a great team.” He then spoke in Japanese , thanking the fans for selecting his new number and saying he hoped to live up to the highest of expectations. Then, again in English: “Let’s go Mets.”
Every time a Japanese pitcher chooses to make that giant leap into the abyss that is Major League Baseball, there are questions about adaptability. The ball is different, the mound is different, the culture shock is immense, the hitters are the best in the world, and starters get trotted out every five days as opposed to once a week. And though there’s no way to tell if Senga will live up to his five-year, $75 million contract, or if that mythical-sounding “ghost fork” pitch can play in this new setting, Monday’s introduction at Citi Field at least pointed to a personality that's ready for the challenge.
Senga likes a big stage. He likes being around people. And he seems fairly comfortable being uncomfortable — a trait he’ll have to rely on as he joins a team with expectations that match its eye-opening payroll.
He doesn’t speak the language quite yet — he used an interpreter Monday — but he’s heeding the advice he got from Yu Darvish about pitching in the United States. “Learn English,” Senga said (in English). And throughout his various interviews Monday, he nodded along to questions, sometimes processing them before they got a chance to be interpreted and occasionally responding on his own, often with a cheeky grin.
And that probably speaks a lot to the way he’s approaching this new landscape. “Instead of forcing the way I was in Japan over here, I want to really absorb everything I can from people here and learn to adjust,” he said.
It helps that he’s been doing it his entire career. Senga was drafted as a developmental league player in Japan, where the fight to the top is arduous. The fact that he became one of the most accomplished developmental league players of all time, and was the Game 1 starter in four Japanese League series, is a testament to his makeup as well as his repertoire, Mets general manager Billy Eppler said.
“He had to scratch and claw his way to the [Nippon Professional Baseball] level . . . it’s a pretty good sign of resiliency,” Eppler said. “Frankly, I think it’s one Mets fans and the community can really identify with and feel good about. He’s a tough kid.”
And oh, will he ever need that. His injury history is dicey — shoulder and elbow issues — and he hasn’t pitched more than 150 innings since 2019. But he’s already begun ingratiating himself with fans (asking them to pick his number via Twitter was an inspired bit of public relations savvy) and it’s clear he wants to be here.
Senga had been lobbying for his Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks to open him up to American teams for years, to no avail. He finally became an unrestricted free agent this year after posting a 1.94 ERA with 156 strikeouts in 144 innings last season.
“This guy wants to win,” Eppler said of the five-time Japanese Series champion. “He wants a championship. He becomes even more extroverted when he talks about that.”
Eppler was equally taken with Senga's "growth mindset" and said, "He really has a curiosity to learn and to be better."
Eppler will have to rely on that a little bit. Senga isn’t a known quantity the way locally scouted players are. But Eppler, who had a hand in bringing Shohei Ohtani and Masahiro Tanaka to the majors, is well-versed in figuring out what skill sets will translate.
And, like Daisuke Matsuzaka’s gyroball and Darvish’s deceptive delivery, Senga has a practiced ability to give hitters something they haven’t seen all that much of before. His ghost fork — a splitter, but not — has the same release point as his fastball, but because of its deep placement between his fingers and the quick snapping motion of his wrist, it tumbles more than it rotates before the bottom comes out just as the hitter commits (it “disappears,” thus the ghost moniker).
There’s a lot that goes into that pitch, and Eppler said Senga's ability to get creative with his craft probably speaks to the type of player who isn’t afraid of a little change.
Asked how he developed the pitch, Senga chose brevity.
“Practice,” he said in English, his wide grin prompting a new chorus of clicks from the surrounding cameras.
It was a prime-time moment at 11 in the morning. If Senga and his big personality can live up to the talent he showed in Japan, there should be plenty more of those to come.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
