The Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball announced that left-hander Sam Long has been signed to a contract for the 2026 season. Long heads to Japan after five MLB seasons, and after posting a 5.36 ERA over 40 1/3 relief innings for the Royals in 2025.
Long’s top big league campaign was in 2024, when he had a career-best 3.16 ERA and 25% strikeout rate over 42 2/3 innings out of the K.C. bullpen. Generally a low-strikeout pitcher with pretty ordinary walk rates, Long’s results have tended to ebb and flow along with his batted-ball luck, and he has a 4.65 ERA to show for his 211 career innings in the majors with the Giants, Athletics, and Royals.
Injuries could partially explains his underwhelming results this year, as Long missed over two months of action due to elbow inflammation. He started to find his form closer to the end of the season, but it wasn’t enough to stop the Royals from outrighting him off their 40-man roster in November, and Long then elected minor league free agency.
The 30-year-old almost surely would’ve had to settle for a minor league contract this winter if he’d stuck to courting MLB teams, so the move to Japan will earn Long some extra money on a guaranteed deal. He’ll now look for a fresh start to his career and a role with a Marines team that has made the playoffs four times in the last six years, thought they have been unable to advance to the Japan Series.
