Tomoyuki Sugano is tempting MLB free-agency option after Trevor Bauer

Trevor Bauer is MLB’s top pitching free-agent prize this offseason.

But Tomoyuki Sugano may not be a bad consolation prize for whichever team wins the bidding on the Japanese star.

The 31-year-old Sugano was posted by the Yomiuri Giants of Nippon Professional Baseball on Dec. 7 and, if his track record is any indication, could make a big impact in an MLB rotation next season.

The right-handed pitcher is a two-time winner of the Eiji Sawamura Award, NPB’s equivalent of the Cy Young award, capturing the honors in 2017 and 2018. In eight seasons in the NPB, Sugano has posted a 2.32 ERA, throwing 1,360 innings and striking out 1,214 with 37 complete games. He was named the 2014 Central League MVP. In 2018, he tossed the first no-hitter in the history of the Climax Series, the NPB’s playoff series that determines who will play in the Japan Championship Series.

Sugano did post the worst ERA of his career (3.89) in 2019 while battling a back injury, but bounced back this year with a 1.97 ERA across 137 1/3 innings.

Two MLB scouts projected Sugano to be a strong No. 3-type starter in the major leagues, The Post’s Joel Sherman previously reported.

On the international stage, Sugano starred in the 2017 World Baseball Classic semifinals when he struck out six batters over six innings against Team USA without allowing an earned run.

“Tonight, the starting pitcher for Japan, he’s a big league pitcher,” longtime manager Jim Leyland said after the game. “He’s good. I mean, I was really impressed with him. … Located on the ball on the outside corners, fastball. Threw 3-0 sliders. That’s pretty impressive.”

Sugano, who reportedly had ligament damage in his right elbow in 2014, throws a fastball ranging from 91-93 mph and topping out at 95 mph, according to MLB.com, while adding a strong slider, a forkball and a changeup to his repertoire.

“He’s a crafty, smart, excellent pitcher with multiple plus-plus pitches,” former Yankees infielder Zelous Wheeler, who has played with and against Sugano in Japan, told MLB.com. “He should translate very well to MLB. He’s hard-working and gets along well with his teammates, both Japanese and foreign players.”

Notable pitchers who have previously made the jump from NPB to MLB include Masahiro Tanaka, Shohei Ohtani, Yu Darvish, Kenta Maeda, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideo Nomo.

Tanaka and Maeda, like Sugano, were two-time winners of the Eiji Sawamura Award, though they were both younger — Tanaka 25, Maeda 27 — when they made their MLB debut.

Past stars of the Yomiuri Giants — often referred to as the Yankees of NPB — to have success in MLB include former Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui and former Red Sox closer Koji Uehara. Neither of them were posted by Yomiuri, though, as the club had long declined to post players.

The record posting fee is $51.7 million, which the Rangers reportedly paid in 2011 to work out a six-year, $60 million deal with Darvish. But MLB has since changed the system, tying the fee to the size of the contract beginning in 2018. If a player agrees to a major league deal, the fee is equal to 20 percent of the player’s first $25 million in guaranteed salary, 17.5 percent of the next $25 million and 15 percent of the remaining amount beyond $50 million.

Tanaka earned the largest contract of any Japanese star who was posted, signing a seven-year, $155 million deal with the Yankees in 2014.

The bidding for Sugano has a deadline of Jan. 7 at 5 p.m.