The Yomiuri Giants won the right to negotiate a deal with highly touted high school slugger Taishi Ota in the first round of Japanese baseball's amateur draft on Thursday.
Yomiuri manager Tatsunori Hara drew the winning ticket from a lottery box after his team and the Softbank Hawks named the 18-year-old infielder of the Tokaidai Sagami team, who has hit 65 home runs in his high school years, in the first round of bids.
"I've had opportunities to watch him play since he was a junior high school player, so I had a special feeling coming into today's draft and now I'm excited that I won the lottery for him," Hara said.
"It'll be nice if he makes it to the top team early like (19-year-old Yomiuri infielder Hayato) Sakamoto did," said Hara.