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Long Island native Anthony Kay is headed back to The Show.
The 30-year-old left-hander from Stony Brook has reportedly signed a two-year deal with the Chicago White Sox, marking his return to Major League Baseball after two standout seasons in Japan. Kay last appeared in the majors in 2023 with the Mets and Cubs, following earlier seasons with Toronto, where he struggled to find consistency.
Everything changed overseas.
Pitching for the Yokohama DeNA BayStars in Nippon Professional Baseball, Kay evolved into one of the league’s top foreign starters. Across 48 starts in Japan, he posted a 2.53 ERA and struck out more than 20 percent of the batters he faced. In 2024, he set a single-season ERA record for his club.
Kay — a Ward Melville graduate, 2012 Gibson Award winner, and 2016 first-round pick by the Mets — caught up with Greater Long Island to talk about his breakout overseas, life in Japan, and what comes next.
GLI: Walk us through how the opportunity to pitch in Japan first came about.
Kay: “My last time in the big leagues was with the Mets in 2023, and then I got DFA’d at the end of the year. I became a free agent. So then we were kind of just looking at all options… whether that was Japan or signing a minor league deal somewhere.
“Eventually the offer came on the table to go over to Japan, and we jumped right on it.”
GLI: Was Japan something you had been actively considering, or did it come out of nowhere?
Kay: “It was an option that my agent threw around a little bit… because each team’s only allowed a couple foreigners. Once we got the offer, we kind of had to decide pretty quickly because we didn’t know how long it would be on the table.”
GLI: Your first season there ended with a championship run. Did you see that coming?
Kay: “Honestly, no. We were like .500 the whole year. We weren’t really playing great… we kind of just got hot at the right time. We had a really good September leading into the playoffs, and then we were able to win the whole thing.”
GLI: How would you compare the talent level in Japan to MLB?
Kay: “The top-end talent, of course, is equal or, if not, better than MLB. You see all these guys coming over now, like [Yoshinobu] Yamamoto and [Roki] Sasaki… and the success they’re having.
“I would say the back end of the rosters probably isn’t as talented as some of the guys here, but they’re still really good. They work good at-bats, they play good defense. You’re probably not going to get 20 to 30 home runs from those guys like you might in the majors.”
GLI: You set the club ERA record in your second season. What clicked?
Kay: “My first year I was working back to being a starter. I had a really good first half and then fell off a little bit — just fatigue, not being used to throwing a lot of innings.
“Going into the second year, I knew I had to build up stronger. I had a lot of success in the first year but knew I could be a little better. I kind of got into a good rhythm and was able to pitch to the best of my abilities.”
GLI: Did pitching in Japan change your game in any way?
Kay: “These guys have such different approaches at the plate. A lot of them just want to work good at-bats, foul a lot of pitches off, get your pitch count up.
“The biggest thing for me was finding another pitch to combat that… I was able to work on a two-seam, and that was crucial to the success I had in the second year.”
GLI: What was daily life like as a pro ballplayer in Japan?
Kay: “The NPB is a little bit different. If you’re a starting pitcher and you’re not pitching that day, you get to go home — you don’t watch the games or stay in the dugout.
“So it gave us a little bit more time to be tourists and see some stuff we wouldn’t have been able to see. That was probably the biggest difference.”
GLI: How about the fan culture?
Kay: “It’s crazy — like nothing you’ll ever experience over here. Every game is like a sellout. They’re doing their chants and player calls the whole game, every day of the week.
“The fans are just incredible. Even if you have a bad game, you’re getting supportive messages. They’re respectful and nice… it sticks out.”
GLI: And the lifestyle? Food, travel, culture shock?
Kay: “We were eating out pretty much every day. Our go-to was yakiniku — they bring the meat out to you and you cook it on your own little stove. That was our go-to meal we would have a couple times a week.
“Everything over there is super clean… it’s insane how clean they keep everything.”
GLI: As far as what’s next — was the goal always to get back to Major League Baseball?
(This interview took place prior to Kay’s reported deal with the White Sox.)
Kay: “We’re leaving all options open… obviously, the goal is to come back to America and pitch in the big leagues. But I’m not 100 percent dead set on that. If something better comes up in Japan, and it’s an option, we’d do that.
“At the end of the day, everyone can use some starting pitching.”
GLI: Would you want another shot to pitch in New York?
Kay: “I’m definitely open to it. I only was able to play in the big leagues with the Mets for like a week or two, but it was still really cool to be so close to home.”
GLI: You came up through the Long Island baseball system. What did that support mean?
Kay: “When I was coming up… I saw Steven Matz get drafted. It was never really in my mind that I was going to get drafted and play professionally, but seeing him do it showed it was possible for someone on Long Island.
“I thankfully got drafted and kind of did the same thing for some of the younger guys — like Ben Brown.”
Top photo: Anthony Kay with his wife Alyssa and their pup in Japan. (Courtesy photo)
