“I had never seen anything like it, and I’m not sure I ever will again,” said Jason Zillo, the Yankees’ executive director for media relations. “So, we’ve been down this road before. We’ve seen it with our own eyes, and we have an idea what to expect. It’s something to look forward to.”

In all, five major league teams have had three Japanese players at one time, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, including the 2012 Rangers, the Seattle Mariners from 2002 to 2005, the 2003 Los Angeles Dodgers and the 2005 Mets, whose roster included Kazuhisa Ishii, Shingo Takatsu and Kazuo Matsui.

According to Elias, the only time a major league team has had four Japanese players on its roster at the same time came in September 2009, when the Red Sox, for a few days, had Matsuzaka, Hideki Okajima, Takashi Saito and Junichi Tazawa on their pitching staff.

In addition to Tanaka, Suzuki and Kuroda, the Yankees have also invited Tateyama, a former Ranger, to spring training with a chance to make the 25-man roster as a right-handed reliever. If he does make the team, and if Suzuki is not traded and Kuroda and Tanaka remain healthy, the Yankees could become the first team to have four players from Japan on its opening-day roster.

“We’ve had players from Japan before,” Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman said. “We’ve had many players from the Dominican Republic at one time, or from Venezuela. So we are used to it. Once they put on the pinstripe jersey, they are all from the same place. They are Yankees.”

More specifically, they are outstanding players. Suzuki has the most major league hits of any Japanese-born player (2,742) and has a shot at reaching 3,000; Kuroda has a career earned run average of 3.40, the lowest of any Japanese pitcher with at least 100 starts in the major leagues; and Tanaka, is, well, Tanaka.

Image Yankees pitcher Hiroki Kuroda will be joined by another Japanese native next season in Masahiro Tanaka. Credit... Barton Silverman/The New York Times

Jeff Nelson, a former Yankees and Seattle reliever, was on the Mariners when they had Suzuki, Kazuhiro Sasaki and Shigetoshi Hasegawa playing together.