STANFORD, Calif. – Japanese high school baseball star Rintaro Sasaki signed a national letter of intent to play at Stanford in 2025, the school announced Tuesday night.
Sasaki will graduate in March from Hanamaki-Higashi High School, the school that produced Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani. Sasaki hit a Japanese high school record of 140 home runs and was projected to be the No. 1 pick in the Nippon Professional Baseball Draft, but he decided to go to an American university.
“We are excited to welcome Rintaro to our Stanford family,” said coach David Esquer. “He may be the highest-profile international prospect to play college baseball in the United States in a long time. His power bat is a perfect fit for our style of play, and we expect him to contribute immediately to help us achieve our goals of competing and win national titles.”
Sasaki has walked twice as many times as he has struck out and has a career batting average of .413, with an on-base percentage of .514 and a slugging percentage of .808.
Stanford has played in three consecutive College World Series.
