With stars from outside the U.S. making a mark, Major League Baseball grows into its global phase

As baseball season enters its home stretch, Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros is in pursuit of MLB’s first Triple Crown since 2012 – that is, tops in his league in batting average, runs batted in and home runs. The feat would add one more piece of evidence to the argument that the international stars of baseball have never shone brighter.

Since the early 2000s, the number of MLB players born outside the United States has held steady at more than one in four, compared to around one in 20 in the 1950s. Last season, the Japanese duo of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto led the Los Angeles Dodgers to the World Series, and since 2016, seven of the past 20 winners of the American League or National League MVP were foreign-born.

Global sensation Ohtani is the obvious game changer, with four MVP awards to his credit in this decade. But going back even before the 1950s, foreign-born players have carved out impressive, sometimes hall-of-fame careers.

To illustrate this, we’ve highlighted notable players based on Baseball Reference’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) metric, which uses offensive, defensive and pitching statistics to measure how many more wins a player is responsible for than a typically available player at his position.

Japan joins the party

Passion for the game of baseball has reached Asian countries as well, most notably Japan. The mid-1990s saw the start of a wave of Japanese-born players that continues to this day.

Japan also boasts an extremely popular domestic league – the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization – and players from Japan will often begin their careers there. Eventually, the best ones will make their way over to MLB. This means Japanese players tend to be more experienced and ready to contribute, bucking the trend of years of development in the minor leagues.

Two of the best examples since 2000 are Ichiro Suzuki and Ohtani, who both played several NPB seasons before coming stateside. And this season, NPB star Kazuma Okamoto made his MLB debut with the Blue Jays and promptly set a franchise rookie record with 28 home runs (and counting).

Northern exposure

As Latin American and Asian countries have contributed to making baseball a global game, Canadians have done their share to bolster North America’s numbers and make an impact on the league in their own way.

There are only two Canadians in the Hall of Fame – workhorse pitcher Ferguson Jenkins and slugger Larry Walker – but fans will remember notables like former AL MVP Justin Morneau, Cy Young-winning closer Éric Gagné, four-time all-star catcher Russell Martin and others.

Which brings us to another possible Cooperstown inductee: Joey Votto of Etobicoke, Ont., who would bear the cap of the only team he played for, the Cincinnati Reds. In his heyday in the 2010s, Votto was an on-base machine and a slugger who collected more than 350 home runs over his 17-year career. He appeared in six All-Star Games, won the NL MVP in 2010 and, thanks to his playful nature, became a beloved teammate and fan favourite.

Votto’s career ended in 2024 and since then, the Canadian pipeline to the majors continues to flow. Though not all born in Canada, the new wave of stars who represent the country include four 2026 MLB all-stars: Freddie Freeman, Otto Lopez, Tristan Peters and Cade Smith.