The Athletics have agreed to a one-year contract with right-hander Shintaro Fujinami, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link). The hard-throwing 28-year-old was posted by the Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball back on Dec. 1. His agreement is pending a physical, and the A’s expect to use him out of the rotation, Passan adds. MLB.com’s Jon Morosi reported not long prior to Passan that the A’s were in ongoing talks with Fujinami’s camp and considered a finalist to sign the righty.

Fujinami was a high school phenom from the same draft class as Shohei Ohtani, incredibly stepping right from high school ball into the Tigers’ rotation and as a 19-year-old rookie and pitching to a 2.75 ERA in 137 2/3 innings as a starter. For several years, he delivered standout results, pitching to a sub-3.00 ERA through his first four seasons as a professional and making the Central League All-Star team in each of those first four campaigns.

The Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league have submitted right-hander Shintaro Fujinami to Major League Baseball’s posting system, they announced Thursday. Fujinami will now have 30 days to negotiate with MLB clubs. Should he reach an agreement with a MLB team, the Hanshin Tigers will receive a compensatory fee derived from his contract’s worth. (You can read more about how the posting system and compensatory fees work by clicking here.)

Fujinami, 28, pitched for the Tigers in parts of the last 10 seasons, amassing a 3.17 ERA and a 2.31 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 252 career appearances. He was once considered a top rival to Los Angeles Angels two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani, thanks in part to his impressive arm strength. Indeed, Fujinami’s fastball sits in the mid-90s and has been clocked into triple digits. He also throws a splitter and a slider. Here’s what Ted Baarda of Sports Info Solutions wrote about him in November:

The splitter was his best strikeout pitch, and his most-used pitch with two strikes, narrowly edging out his fastball in both two-strike usage and strikeouts. In addition to having a solid 34% whiff rate, batters also struggled to do anything with the splitter when it was put in play. His splitters turned into grounders 66% of the time, and batters only managed a 9% hard hit rate versus the pitch.