Here’s a story you don’t see very often: Penn State’s baseball team has landed a top-notch recruiting prospect. Genei Sato, a 21-year-old right-handed pitcher at Japan’s Sendai University, who boasts up to a 99 mph fastball, will transfer to Penn State in February with the intent of playing for the Nittany Lions in 2027 and potentially declaring for the Major League Baseball Draft that same year. Sato has posted a 2.22 ERA while pitching over 170 innings at Sendai, averaging over 10.7 strikeouts
per nine innings.
The path that Sato is choosing to pursue his MLB dream is an unusual one for Japanese players, as they typically do not end up playing NCAA baseball, but rather play professionally in Japan until the Majors come calling for them. I don’t know diddly-squat about baseball recruiting, but I would have to imagine this is the most highly-touted prospect PSU has ever landed, and is a huge win for head coach Mike Gambino, who has already done a solid job making the program a lot more competitive despite its inherent disadvantage as a Northern school by taking them on deep runs into the Big Ten Tournament (Runners Up in 2024 and Semifinals in 2025) his first two seasons at the helm.
Just one quick look at some video of Sato is enough to get you excited about what he could potentially do for the program once he suits up. I mean, just look at that fastball!
