One-time Guardians slugger continues international career with one-year deal in NPB 

At one point, Franmil Reyes looked like he was going to be the Guardians’ next big slugger. And while Reyes never panned out in Cleveland, he’s turned into one of the best sluggers in Japan and is set for another big season in Nippon Professional Baseball after re-signing with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters for 2026. 

The contract will mark Reyes’ third straight season in Japan after spending the 2024 and ‘25 seasons with the Ham-Fighters. He’s slashed.282/.347/.535 with 57 home runs across those two seasons, which are some of the league’s best power numbers. 

Former Guardians slugger signs third straight contract in Nippon Professional Baseball

Reyes’ time in Cleveland started in 2019 when the Guardians acquired him as a part of a three-team deal that sent Trevor Bauer to the Reds. 

After hitting 19 home runs across 110 games in the second half of 2019 and the entire truncated 2020 season, Reyes broke out in 2021 with a 30 home run season despite missing six weeks with an oblique strain.

That ended up being the peak of his time with the Guardians, as he was DFA’d 70 games in 2022 after hitting just .213 with 104 strikeouts. 

That DFA sent Reyes into the baseball wilderness. He finished the 2022 season with the Cubs and played in 19 games with the Royals in 2023 before heading overseas. 

He wasted no time making an impression in Japan when he had a 22-game hitting streak in 2024 (marking the league’s longest hit streak by a non-Japanese player) before finishing the year with 25 home runs. 

While Reyes signed a one-year contract, it’s hard to see a situation where he ends up returning stateside. 

Even if Reyes never ended up panning out in Cleveland, he still became a fan favorite due to his size, smile and ability to hit the ball out of the park.

His biggest flaw (and the thing that ultimately ended his major league career) was the abundance of swing and miss in his game. He finished his major league career with a 30.6% strikeout percentage, though he’s been able to cut that down to 24% in Japan. 

If anything, Reyes returning to the news is a reminder of how much has changed with the Guardians over the past four years.

While he briefly overlapped with Steven Kwan, most of the players who were around him in the lineup in 2022 aren’t with the Guardians (outside of José Ramírez and Austin Hedges).