A top-tier free agent pitcher at an affordable price? Here’s what right-hander Roki Sasaki’s decision means.
¡Roki Sasaki arrives at the MLB! In a decision that will surely shake up this offseason, the Chiba Lotte Mariners of Japan’s NPB announced that their 23-year-old star pitcher will be available, allowing the ace to join The Majors for the 2025 season.
One of the most notable pitchers on the planet since he was a teenager, Sasaki has dominated in Japan’s top league, and on the big stage of the World Baseball Classic, since 2021. He immediately becomes the No. 2 free agent in my rankings low season (only behind Juan Soto).
How good is Sasaki? When could you sign and for how much? And which teams are emerging as the favorites to sign him?
Let’s dive deeper as an ace joins the top of this year’s free agent class.
Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki will be available to sign with an MLB team. Kyodo News via AP
How good is Sasaki?
Really, really good, and it’s not even a finished product yet. Sasaki became famous for hitting 101 mph in high school and then breaking Japan’s NPB record with 19 strikeouts in a perfect game when he was just 20 years old.
From a repertoire perspective, Sasaki is near the top of the scale. In the 2023 NPB regular season, his fastball averaged 99.0 mph with above-average lift and movement. His best slow pitch is a devastating splitter that is one of the best on Earth. Because his splitter doesn’t have the strong arm-side travel of most, he can use it effectively against right-handed and left-handed hitters.
Sasaki’s third-best pitch is his slider, a plus offering in 2023 that he used almost exclusively against right-handed hitters. You probably also have room to add a new release or two to your three existing offerings, whether it’s a splinker like the one you acquired Paul Skenes in the minors or something softer like a curveball at the start of a count, or maybe both.
That’s three positive pitches, and Sasaki’s walk rate suggests above-average control (although his control is a bit below that). But an important note: Those numbers were all from 2023. Sasaki’s stuff is down this year (2 mph fastball velocity and less movement, about 4 mph slider velocity) and it’s not entirely clear why. He missed a couple of months with an unspecified injury to his throwing arm, so the natural speculation among international scouts is that he may have been limited by whatever that issue was. Given Sasaki’s heavy workload in high school and top-notch speed, you can imagine why MLB teams would like some clarity on this situation.
It could also be that Sasaki was struggling with some minor ailments and overcompensating mechanically, and just needed a full offseason to improve and some training next spring on how to adjust things to get back to his best. If that’s the case, he would once again be one of the best pitchers on the planet, and he turned 23 earlier this month. That would put him face to face with Paul Skenes as the best young pitcher in MLB and among the best young pitchers in recent memory.
#Aki Sasaki We would like to inform you that we have decided to begin the process of transferring the pitcher to a Major League Baseball (MLB) team in the United States via posting.
▼Comments from team manager Matsumoto… pic.twitter.com/iwEjGoUS1C
— Chiba Lotte Marines (@chibalotte) November 9, 2024
What is your contractual situation?
According to the publication rules of the NPBany player who arrives before turning 25 is limited to a minor league contract with a signing bonus coming from a team’s remaining international bonus fund (capped at just over $7.5 million). Shohei Ohtani He went through a similar process in the 2017-18 offseason and signed for $2.3 million with Los Angeles Angels in December 2017.
If he waits until he turns 25 (for Sasaki, that would be after the 2026 season), he would be eligible for a major league free agent contract like the 12-year, $325 million deal that Yoshinobu Yamamoto obtained from Los Angeles Dodgers last winter. From the outside it might seem like an easy decision to wait two seasons and get a Yamamoto-sized contract, but there are reasons why reaching the majors sooner could be attractive: the possibility of earning significant off-the-field sponsorship earnings and the hope of earning an Ohtani-style payday as he hits free agency at his youngest age in seven years.
Since it appears Sasaki intends to arrive in the United States this winter, the timing of when he actually signs will have a significant impact on what he can get. The current international signing period ends on December 15 and next year’s begins on January 15, with a publication period of up to 45 days. Signing early would limit his bonus to whatever teams have in this year’s international pool: The largest remaining pool is about $2.5 million; the team with the third-most remaining pot space has around $1.5 million, and only six teams have at least $1 million.
If Sasaki arrives after December 15, the team’s bonus funds are reset. Totals for next year’s fund start at $7,555,500 and end at $5,146,200. All teams have verbal agreements with international prospects of varying bonus sizes for the upcoming period, but Sasaki is such a unique talent that the expectation is that any interested team would break many, or even all, of their verbal agreements to give Sasaki the biggest possible amount of your reservation. This would have a cost: angering the coaches/agents of those players with whom they have agreements in place and even the possibility of generating lawsuits for that reason, but that would be the price of obtaining a value of more than $200 million dollars by signing to Sasaki for the next six seasons.
The timing of the publication also affects his Japanese club. Yamamoto’s NPB team, Orix, received a $50.6 million posting fee from the Dodgers, a total derived from the $325 million contract figure. Sasaki’s NPB club, Chiba Lotte, would get a 25% fee from the MLB team that signs him this offseason, which would increase if he waits until January to sign the largest deal (it still couldn’t be more than $1,888,875).
So why would Chiba Lotte publish it? We don’t know for sure in this case, but it is common for players to have handshake agreements with their NPB club about when they will be allowed to be released. That type of deal is even more common with top high school prospects who had clout when they signed their first pro contract. Sasaki certainly had it, as the most celebrated Japanese high school prospect in a long time. It’s unknown if Sasaki has a peace deal with Chiba Lotte, but we know he asked to be released last year (the team rejected his request), so we know this is what he wants.
Who could sign it?
The short answer is: any team, but the Dodgers seem like the ones to beat. Sasaki is widely rumored to prefer the Dodgers for all the reasons Yamamoto was presumed to prefer the Dodgers: West Coast, loaded team, Japanese teammates, top-notch development, big market, etc. In a world where the amount of money each team can offer is a secondary concern, this becomes a college-style recruiting pitch, rather than the typical free agency bidding war, and the Dodgers might have the best pitch. of baseball.
As I mentioned above, the MLB team with the most to spend in the current international period has approximately $2.5 million available. Yes, that’s the Dodgers, and that’s no accident. On the other hand, I said that the lowest fund in the next period is $5,146,200. That’s also the Dodgers, penalized because of their Competitive Balance Tax payroll and for signing a player who had rejected his original team’s qualifying offer last offseason: Shohei Ohtani.
Editorial Selections
There has also been talk in the scouting community that Sasaki’s personality and background mean he might be better suited or more interested in a smaller market. You could argue that the Dodgers are so loaded that Sasaki wouldn’t get as much attention as if he went to a team where he would become the marquee addition.
I have been told that the Baltimore Orioles, los New York Yankees y los San Francisco Giants tThey have the next largest groups in the current international period, respectively (those totals are not made public). It might help Baltimore and San Francisco’s case if Sasaki is released soon, but it seems more logical for Sasaki to be released after December 15. By simply waiting another month or two, you can earn more money (and Chiba Lotte) and you will have more viable options.
