Suzuki still plans to sign with an MLB team when the lockout ends, he told The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly in a wide-ranging interview. The outfielder, who was posted by the Hiroshima Carp, has heard recruiting pitches from 10 to 12 clubs and the Red Sox are among them. When the lockout ends, he will have about 20 days to decide where to sign.

“The Red Sox are known to have strong scouting links to Suzuki, and in an interview with a Japanese TV station earlier this month, former Boston pitcher Koji Uehara tried to squeeze an admission out of him that he was bound for Fenway Park,” Baggarly wrote.

Baggarly reports the Mariners and Giants have also been involved in talks with Suzuki and adds that the Dodgers, Padres, Yankees, Rays and Blue Jays are also expected to be in the mix. Suzuki, 27, said he has no preference based on league and coast. His deal is expected to be in the range of five years and $60 million, according to the report.

Star right fielder Seiya Suzuki will be made available to Major League Baseball clubs via the posting process this offseason, one source told MLB.com on Friday.

While the Hiroshima Toyo Carp of Nippon Professional Baseball have yet to make a formal announcement concerning the 27-year-old’s future, the club is expected to do so after the Japan Series concludes later this month. The 2021 NPB season is ending later than usual, because the league schedule paused during the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Once his posting window opens, Suzuki will compete with free agent Starling Marte as this winter’s top available outfielder. Suzuki is a five-time NPB All-Star, and he has excelled internationally, winning MVP honors at the 2019 WBSC Premier12 tournament.

Suzuki is coming off a 2021 season in which he posted career highs in OPS (1.079) and home runs (38) in 131 games for the Carp. As a right-handed batter with patience, power and basestealing acumen, Suzuki has earned comparisons to Atlanta Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr.

According to JAWS, Nomo barely ranks among the top 500 starting pitchers in MLB history, and Hall of Fame voters signaled their agreement when they let him drop off the ballot after just one appearance, with only 1.1 percent of ballots carrying his name. But that sells short the enormous impact Nomo has had on baseball, which continues to this day. Not only was he one of the game’s most electrifying and imitated pitchers during his heyday, but he opened the door for other Japanese players to arrive in the U.S. and play for MLB teams. The modern posting system — which has been the pathway to America for Japanese stars such as Ichiro Suzuki, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Yu Darvish, Masahiro Tanaka and, yes, the great Shohei Ohtani — was instituted in large part as a reaction to Nomo finding that loophole back in 1995.

As Dave Wallace, Nomo’s pitching coach with the Dodgers, put it: “He was the first one. He had everything to lose and nothing to gain. He set the table for a lot of other guys, who are now reaping the benefits.”

And while Murakami was Japan’s first MLB player,2 Nomo was its first MLB superstar. Nomomania was real, and it captured baseball fans’ attention in the summer of 1995 every bit as much as Ohtani’s exploits have enthralled us this year. So now, 26 years later, with all eyes in the sports world on Nomo’s home country, it’s time to remember just how damn good Nomo was as both a player and a baseball icon.