Highlights from Sasaki’s introductory press conference at Dodger Stadium.
LOS ANGELES — Roki Sasaki was introduced at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday, officially starting his Major League Baseball journey after four years with the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan.
“I want to move forward with the belief that the decision I made is the best one, trust in those who believed in my potential and conviction in the goals that I set for myself,” Sasaki said, through interpreter Will Ireton.
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman called the 23-year-old right-hander “one of the most electrifying and promising talents in the game,” culminating a years-long pursuit that began with Pacific Rim scouts Galen Carr, Ismael Cruz, and John Deeble watching Sasaki pitch in high school.
“We thought he might have been available two years ago. We thought he might be available last year,” Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten said. “We’ve tried to stay flexible, and it’s worked out pretty well for us through the years.”
Sasaki was a rare sight on the hot stove, with his combination of youth and major league readiness, and with limited experience in Japan was not considered a foreign professional, which limited his earning potential in the majors right away. He’s a plug-and-play major league starter who is cheap, which any major league team would salivate over.
After initial meetings with teams, Sasaki narrowed his choices down to the Dodgers, Padres, and Blue Jays, visiting each city in the last week of negotiations. The Dodgers were his choice, officially signing him Wednesday to a minor league contract with a signing bonus of $6.5 million.
“I think the number one thing that stood out was the stability of the front office,” Sasaki said.
During his initial meetings, Sasaki essentially gave teams a homework assignment, asking them how he can improve his fastball velocity, which waned in 2024. That created a challenge for teams, weighing how much proprietary information they would be willing to share.
“There are some cases where you’re not sure where we’re at, like is it worth giving it up,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes explained. “In this case, there’s the ability to actually sign him, so we’ll risk it, sure. We got into as much as we could, because obviously it it’s a condensed timeframe, and a big part of our assessment is getting hands on him, which you don’t have the ability to do.
“There are cases where you might be more vague, but the chance to impress and potentially have him choose us, it was worth putting that out there.”
“For us, the homework assignment we felt like was right in our wheelhouse, our ability to showcase our performance science group, our performance staff, our pitching coaches, and how connected those groups are,” Friedman said. “We felt it really highlighted a strength of ours.”
Both Gomes and Friedman said Sasaki will be in the major league rotation right away, and that there isn’t necessarily an innings limit on the right-hander, who pitched 111 innings last season and averaged just over 110⅓ innings over the last three years.
Sasaki comes to a Dodgers team that placed 11 starting pitchers on the injured list last season, and one that is seemingly trying to combat that with volume, already this season adding Blake Snell and Sasaki, plus expected returns to the mound for Shohei Ohtani, Tony Gonsolin, and Dustin May.
“The hope and the goal is that we’re in a much better position this year than we were last,” Gomes said of potentially sorting through the rotation depth. “We’ll let things kind of play out and see how it goes from there. But if history is any indication, it won’t be quite as challenging.”
In other words, these things have a tendency to sort themselves out.
Links and notes
Photo by Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Sasaki is wearing uniform number 11, which was worn by veteran Miguel Rojas the last two years. Sasaki was asked what gift he will give to Rojas, who will switch back to number 72.
“I’m really grateful that a veteran like Miguel Rojas has let me wear number 11,” Sasaki said. “I haven’t decided yet on what I’m going to give, but I’m going to start thinking about that.”
Also notable regarding the uniform, it says “R. SASAKI” on the back, not just his last name. But perhaps more importantly after last season’s uniform shenanigans, that name plate on the back is in a much larger font size this year.
Dylan Hernández at the Los Angeles Times wrote about how Sasaki as a rookie with Chiba Lotte in Japan was advised to get Tommy John surgery, and that his coming to the majors now was more about health than wealth:
Sasaki never had the operation, but the incident shaped his thinking. Years later, he found himself thinking about how he didn’t want to risk suffering a career-altering injury before pitching in the world’s most competitive league.
“You hear many voices that say I should have waited two more years [to come to the United States], but there are of course no guarantees about my condition in those two years,” Sasaki said in Japanese.
Sasaki’s agent Joel Wolfe on Wednesday was asked about the critique that Sasaki to the Dodgers was a done deal long before last week. From Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic:
“It’s always been an issue,” Wolfe said. “I’ve tried to be an open book and as transparent as possible with all the teams in the league. I answer every phone call. I answer every question. This goes back to before the process even started. Every team I think would tell you that I told each one of them where they stood throughout the entire process, why they got a meeting, why they didn’t get a meeting, why other teams got a meeting. I tried to do my best to do that. He was only going to be able to pick one.”
Carr recalled to Cary Osborne of Dodger Insider about how blown away he was the first time he saw Sasaki pitch, at age 17 in high school in Ofunato:
“It was a hyper-mobile athlete. Just folds up so easily, and he has long limbs and the ball comes out easy. And he’s touching 100 (mph),” Carr recalled. “As an athlete, as a kid with poise and presence on the mound from a raw-stuff standpoint, it was as good as you’ll see from someone that age.”
Carr e-mailed Dodger President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman after witnessing Sasaki’s physicality and dominance as a 17-year-old.
“This is it,” Carr recalled saying in the e-mail.