A veteran left-hander Joey Lucchesi headed to Japan. The Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball announced this week that they have signed the 33-year-old CAA prospect through the remainder of the 2026 season (via Yuri Karasawa of Yakyu Cosmopolitan). Navy captain Saburo Omura said in a statement that Lucchesi will improve his game.
Lucchesi has pitched in eight of the last nine major league seasons, the exception being the 2022 campaign that was lost to injury. He was a solid piece of the rotation with the Padres in his first two big league seasons in 2018-19 (293 2/3 innings, 4.14 ERA, 24.6 K%, 8.0 BB%) and had some great articles as a swingman following the trade to the Mets. Recently, he has started jumping around the leagues, joining three different organizations (Mets, Giants, Angels) in the last three seasons.
The Halos have given Lucchesi just 3 1/3 innings in the majors this year. His opponents scored five earned runs. It wasn’t a great show, but there’s not much you can get from such a small sample. Lucchesi was at his best at Triple-A Salt Lake, where he threw 33 1/3 innings in a hitter position but still managed a tidy 3.24 earned run average. He struck out 31.9% of his opponents against a 9.2% walk rate and kept 46.2% of the balls he faced. The Anges granted him a waiver earlier this month, apparently because of foreign language from his minor league contract.
In all, Lucchesi pitched 416 2/3 innings in the majors. His career 4.15 ERA nearly matched the 4.14 mark he posted in his first two seasons as a member of San Diego’s rotation. Lucchesi doesn’t throw particularly hard or miss at-bats at a high level, but his sinker and curveball/changeup hybrid (“churve”) have both often been released as effective pitches in the majors. He’ll spend the rest of the season in Japan – likely earning more than he would on a minor league contract in North America – and reassess his market at the start of the season. A strong performance could earn him a seven-figure overseas guarantee in 2027 or attract the attention of major league clubs on a free transfer this winter.
