When Carter Stewart and the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks agreed to a six-year, $6 million contract in 2019, it made news as the historic first such deal between an elite American amateur and an NPB team.
Their deal began an experiment, which, if successful, could spark imitation, lure other amateurs here and fundamentally change Japanese pro baseball and its relationship with the major leagues.
Since teams from Japan's first pro league began competing in the spring of 1936, Japan's pro establishment has hoped to be the equal of Major League Baseball someday. But because most of the world's elite players aspire to play in MLB, where the competition is higher and the top salaries dwarf Japan's, that gap has narrowed somewhat but remains substantial.