Carter Stewart Jr.'s Unorthodox Path Is Finally Paying Off
Carter Stewart Jr. signed with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in 2019 for $7 million, never touching an MLB organization, and the 2021 season gave everyone the first real evidence that the bet was worth making.
Go back to 2018. The Atlanta Braves took Stewart eighth overall in the MLB Draft, then offered a below-slot bonus tied to concerns about a wrist injury. Stewart didn’t accept it. He walked and enrolled at Eastern Florida State College in Florida instead. The Braves used that compensation pick on Shea Langeliers in 2019. Most scouts figured Stewart would circle back to the draft after proving himself at the JUCO level. He didn’t do that either.
Scott Boras had a different plan. The agent negotiated a six-year guaranteed contract with the Nippon Professional Baseball organization Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks worth $7 million. “He had no opportunity to get true value in the American system,” Boras told Bob Nightengale in May 2019. That quote hit front offices hard. It forced a real argument about whether elite American arms were leaving money behind by feeding themselves into the draft pipeline without question.
SoftBank wasn’t a soft landing. The Hawks had won six Japan Series titles across a seven-year stretch by that point, with billionaire owner Masayoshi Son bankrolling facilities and a roster infrastructure that drew comparisons to the Dodgers. Signing a 19-year-old American with a top-ten pick pedigree was just another power move for that organization.
The early years didn’t go smoothly. Stewart was young, adjusting to a completely foreign environment, and then COVID-19 hit just as he was supposed to get his first real professional reps. He worked through 2019 and 2020 splitting time between the Hawks’ lower affiliate levels, competing against Shikoku Island League Plus clubs and NPB-affiliate squads on the second team. It’s the kind of grind that doesn’t show up in box scores.
Then 2021 arrived, and it changed the story.
Stewart got his NPB debut on April 17, coming out of the bullpen and striking out two in a scoreless inning. He got sent back down after giving up six runs over his next two appearances. That would’ve broken some guys. It didn’t break him. Back in the minors, he put together a 1.84 ERA with a 24% strikeout rate over 53 and two-thirds innings. SoftBank called him back up on August 15.
His first career NPB start produced five hitless innings and nine strikeouts, anchoring a combined no-hitter. That game justified every unconventional choice he and Boras had made going back to 2018. It wasn’t a fluke performance by a fringe prospect. It was a 26-year-old arm delivering exactly what the scouting grades had always suggested.
The 2022 season brought an abdominal injury that pushed the timeline back again. Setbacks have come in clusters throughout Stewart’s career, and that’s the honest read on this story: the raw stuff has always been there, the durability hasn’t always cooperated. But the arc from a 17-year-old turning down Atlanta to a combined no-hitter in Japan’s top league is a legitimate one. Stewart is 26 now, and there’s still a real MLB conversation waiting if the body holds.