#85: Can We Trust Kazuma Okamoto's Daughter?

After it seemed like 29-year-old six-time NPB All-Star Kazuma Okamoto would sign with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Seattle Mariners, Los Angeles Angels, or the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Toronto Blue Jays (ahem, go Jays) swooped in (heh) at the last minute to land the slugger.

Okamoto signed a four-year $60 million deal with Toronto, as the Blue Jays continue to spend money in hopes of maintaining the success that they had in 2025.

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Big Oak gave his introductory press conference earlier this week, and he was super complimentary of Toronto and said he would give it his all.

But there could have been a turning point (ugh, that phrase) for why he decided to go to Toronto when he had two similar offers: his daughter liked the logo.

"Kazuma Okamoto says he loves the city of Toronto and is excited about the team," Matheson reports, "but there was another piece to his decision: Okamoto put all 30 MLB logos in front of his daughter and asked her which one she liked the most. She chose the Blue Jays."

A. Dor. A. Ble.

That's the first time that I've heard someone say that before, and it instantly made him a fan favorite in Toronto.

But the question that I have is: can we trust his daughter, or is she full of shit?

I wanted to get to the bottom of this to see if the Blue Jays logo really was something that kids liked a lot, or if it was just a brilliant PR move.

The issue is: I have a dog and a cat. And I'm sure as hell not going to ask random kids on the street (stranger danger).

While I believe that there needs to be a large dataset in place in order to quantify it appropriately, I was working with what I had available to me on short notice.

I enlisted a group of seven children, aged three to 13, and put all MLB logos in front of them.

I had them pick their top three in order.

It's important to note for this study that the children are remaining anonymous, and that I know them or their parents.

I also made it clear to just ask the children to vote only on the logo and not on the actual team that they like.

None of the parents knew what this study was for, outside of being featured in my newsletter. They didn't know – or at least didn't share – that they assumed it had something to do with Okamoto and his child.

Each first place vote will be awarded three points. Second place will get two points, and third place will get one point.

Some of the participants responded immediately, while others took their time to consider their answers.

One child, aged four, changed her answers multiple times. In order to be as accurate as possible, we went with the initial results to maintain integrity.

So, did these children agree with Okamoto's daughter that the Blue Jays logo was, indeed, the best in baseball? Or was she lying to all of us?

Let's look at the results.

OK, we are cooking with gas coming out of the gate. This child picked Toronto as its No. 1 pick. It is worth noting that this was the aforementioned child that changed her answers multiple times.

Interesting.

Birds of a feather, they stick together, apparently. Two votes, two different birds in first place.

Could this be a trend of nature being popular with kids again? Are screens losing?

This voting belongs to the oldest child in the study. The Sox logo is a classic, one that I had a big throw blanket of as a kid. But I don't think that this child knows that.

No collusion ruled. Solid voting.

We are 12 votes in now, and we finally have our first repeats. We are starting to get some actual data to work with.

This child voted after school and after-school activities, so while they could be tired from their day, these results work well.

Their parent said, "they voted for the Angels because they said they liked the 'Eiffel Tower looking one.'"

Angels fans wish they were in France with how awful that franchise is.

Child 5 is the youngest of the group at just three years old. This child is a Pirates fan, so I'm glad that they understood the importance of this study by voting just based on logos – not on who Paul Skenes pitches for.

His answers were rapid fire, which I trust. He, too, voted for the Blue Jays at No. 1.

That's our first repeat No. 1 answer – giving weight to Okamoto's daughter's thoughts.

Children six and seven took their time. They were definitely considering the answers carefully and it had nothing at all to do with their parents being some of the busiest people I know.

They understood the assignment, though, and stressed that they "don't like Washington" as a team.

Word is out if they like shopping at Walgreens or not.

Another vote for the other bird.

Our final child in this study also voted for Washington, but we have our first Detroit vote on the board.

Colorado sneakily gets its second second-place vote.

This concludes our study.

The Findings

After the voting finished, I tallied up the scores. I also sent them off to two independent parties to validate the scoring and the votes.

Here are the results.

For athletes that are media trained, we always have to be careful of taking them at their word. But it looks like there's weight there when it comes to Okamoto's daughter liking the Blue Jays logo the best.

It ran away with the voting here, as it was the only logo to receive two first-place votes.

There were no logos with more than two votes, so it was closer than it appears.

However, our final ruling is that we can trust Okamoto's daughter.

She is not full of shit.

Full scoring

Until Next Week

Fuck Ice.