Penn State baseball right-handed pitcher Genei Sato was selected in the ninth round of the 2026 Nippon Pro Baseball (NPB) Draft by the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks on Thursday.

NPB, Japan’s top baseball league, is widely considered the second-best professional baseball league in the world behind MLB. Many of MLB’s top Japanese stars got their start there, including Ichiro Suzuki, Shohei Ohtani, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Sato, who previously attended Sendai University, was eligible for the 2026 NPB Draft and considered entering it, but last year made the ambitious decision to come to America and enroll at Penn State, with sights set on the 2027 MLB Draft instead.

As such, Fukuoka’s selection is a low-investment gamble in case things don’t work out for Sato in the United States. His draft rights will elapse in 2027, so barring an unexpected change of heart, Sato’s selection will be about as impactful as Tom Brady being drafted by the Montreal Expos in 1995.

Other players who have said they want to play in America, including Stanford’s Rintaro Sasaki and uncommitted 18-year-old Shoki Oda, were selected with much more ambitious first-round picks.

Sato has been exceptional through two fall ball games for Penn State, throwing five shutout innings with eight strikeouts while lighting up the radar gun with his upper-90s fastball. He is expected to be Mike Gambino’s Friday starter in 2027.