2/5/15: Kawaguchi, Japan – Kiyomen Saito was shocked last spring to hear he had been selected with the overall #1 pick in the draft by the Kawaguchi Transmitters. It was his dream come true – in fact, some of his closest friends would say it was inevitable that Saito would wind up with Kawaguchi, as he grew up some 20 kilometers away from the city. “I was thirteen when the LRS came into existence,” Saito said over the phone after he was drafted, “and sixteen when Yamato became Kawaguchi. It was a great thing. I went to several games. It was always fun, and I remember dreaming of wearing the gold uniform. They were my team from the moment I saw them.”

Luckily, the gods granted him a 97 MPH fastball, which he used to rack up 17 wins during four seasons at Aoyama Gakuin University. He was on an impressive run in his junior season when disaster struck – he tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow and lost the rest of 2013, raising considerable concern over his draft status. But the Transmitters were won over with a solid 70 innings in 12 starts during the following eason. “We were looking at several pitchers over the year,” Kawaguchi GM Ron Collins said. “Kiyomen was always in the mix. When he came back from that injury and still had the velocity to strike out more than a guy an inning, we were pretty well sold. We like his makeup, too. He works hard and seems to just like being on baseball teams.”

The Transmitters liked him so much that the front office decided to have him skip A-Ball completely. They sent him to AAA-Taito. Everyone knew about Saito’s fastball, but Taito’s coaches were astounded to find his changeup so well developed. “He really has multiple changes,” said Taito pitching coach Jin-hyun Yi. “That makes his slider that much better, too.”

Saito struggled in his first few games, perhaps bowing to some self-inflicted pressure. His ERA of 4.28 on the year wasn’t as inspiring as he had hoped. But the hard-throwing right-hander is, perhaps, missing the bigger picture – a big picture that shows a record of 6 wins against only 2 losses, and 85 strikeouts in just over 73 innings. Add in control displayed by a 3.4 K:BB ratio and you’ve got a pretty impressive season by the #1 draft pick.

All of the rumors surrounding Saito’s future have friends hitting him up for tickets to Kawaguchi games, but the hometown boy is not so ready to partake in such excitements. “I need to earn my chance at the LRS before we go getting tickets. I don’t want to jinx anything.” On the other hand, several indicators suggest Saito may be needing to pony up those tickets soon. The Transmitters gave him a $600K/year deal upon being drafted with the idea that it would not be long before they would be seeing him in Kawaguchi gold.

“We’ll see what he’s got come the springtime and decide from there,” Collins said. “There’s no reason to make that decision six months before the season starts.”