Former Los Angeles Dodgers right-handed pitcher Kenta Maeda recently announced that he will be leaving Major League Baseball at the end of the 2025 season. The 37-year-old recently revealed that he plans to spend the 2026 season in Japan in order to be closer to his family while he rounds out his professional baseball career.
Ahead of the 2016 season, the Dodgers signed Maeda to an eight-year, $25 million contract after eight productive seasons of Nippon Professional Baseball. He tossed an ERA of just 2.39 to go along with a strikeout to walk ratio of 3.87 during that span as he prepared for his first season in MLB.