Japanese slugger Rintaro Sasaki to sign with Marlins, forgo professional career in home country

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HANAMAKI, Japan (AP) — Japanese slugger Rintaro Sasaki will sign with the Miami Marlins and forgo a professional career in his home country.

The Marlins selected Sasaki out of Stanford in the eighth round of Major League Baseball's amateur draft last week, but the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks also selected him in the first round of the Nippon Professional Baseball draft.

The difficult decision had Sasaki fighting back tears during a news conference in his hometown on Sunday.

“More than anyone else, I believe I understand my own limitations and how much I still need to improve,” Sasaki said. “Even if this path ultimately turns out to be the wrong choice, I do not want to live with regret. Rather than defining my life by whether I succeed or fail, I want to define it by whether I had the courage to take on a challenge. With that belief in mind, I ultimately decided to pursue this path."

Sasaki played under Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani’s father, Toru, and is Japan's all-time high school home run leader with 140. He made waves out of high school, opting out of the Nippon league's draft to play at Stanford.

The 21-year-old first baseman played two seasons at Stanford, hitting .262 with 16 homers and 47 RBIs as a sophomore last year.

“I went back and forth on this decision until the very end," Sasaki said. "Ever since I chose to attend Stanford, I have always had a strong desire to challenge myself in the United States. In the end, that desire won out. I felt that I wanted to see how far I could go by challenging myself in America, and that feeling became stronger than anything else.”

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