Introducing the Monster of the Reiwa Era

For the second offseason in a row, the Dodgers have claimed a crown jewel of Nippon Professional Baseball. As Sasaki has picked the Dodgers, let us introduce the Monster of the Reiwa Era.

For the past two years, I have felt like a scientist in a Godzilla movie. In fact, I was shocked to learn that we were all blessed with a serious, spiritual successor to the original Gojira in Godzilla Minus One, a film that I saw in theaters three times in 2023 (in IMAX, in standard definition, and in the Minus Color version).

When I first learned of Roki Sasaki, the Dodgers had yet to play a single game with Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow, or Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The 2023-24 offseason was not even complete, yet with the knowledge I had, I warned everyone that a figure was lurking in the periphery: Roki Sasaki.

Some would say like a monster. And just like a kaiju film, no one listened.

Everyone is certainly paying attention now. The monster has been sighted; he is coming and cannot be stopped. And once again, he is a Dodger.

Introducing the Monster of the Reiwa Era

This time, we focus on a pitcher with the highest ceiling of any pitcher I have ever seen.

Yes, higher than Clayton Kershaw.

Yes, higher than Yamamoto.

Yes, even higher than Ohtani (as a pitcher). Japanese Babe Ruth is still Japanese Babe Ruth.

Sasaki has already earned arguably the best nickname in all of baseball right now: The Monster of the Reiwa Era, following in the footsteps of The Monster of the Showa Era Suguru Egawa, and The Monster of the Heisei Era Daisuke Matsuzaka. The Japanese name their eras after their emperors, hence why there are clear distinctions between Showa Godzilla (goofy little scamp), Heisei Godzilla (so serious), and Reiwa Godzillas (on-point allegory!)

As an aside, Shin Godzilla was a direct allegory for the Great Tohoku Earthquake and the corresponding Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster on March 11, 2011. Sasaki was nine when the natural disaster killed his father and grandparents and wiped out his home. Twelve years later, Sasaki made his World Baseball Classic debut.

I can only think of one monster that encompasses all eras, but that topic is one for another day. [Author’s Note: Seriously, you had the opportunity to watch Godzilla Minus One in theaters, and it’s gone now. It was that good and certainly better than anything that was nominated for Best Picture in 2023.]

Before delving further, it is worth noting on reports that Yu Darvish tried to effectively cosplay Beast King GoLion (you would know this show by its sanitized American adaptation) by trying to convince AJ Preller to pursue Ohtani and Yamamoto so that they would both sign with the San Diego Padres when they became available,

At the time, Darvish said the following, which was reported by Yahoo Japan. Google translated the interview as follows.[Author’s Note: the original link was archived before publication, an archived link is provided herein.]

“I’ve been around for a while, so I know how good they are. They’re all very detailed, and they play baseball hard.’’ And now it’s a special team, “I’m going to the Padres, and I always want to beat them, and I’m passionate, and I’m playing against the Dodgers.’’ It seems like there was something to think about. “I was imagining a year ago that if Otani and Yamamoto could be signed, the Japanese would gather in the Padres and want to beat the Dodgers, and when I signed, (GM) Preller said, I asked him if he was going to be unable to sign a contract with Yamamoto-kun or be pressured into paying the money if I signed a contract like this. He said it was okay, so he signed the contract. A year has passed since then. I’m sure there were a lot of problems, but there was no action from Ohtani or Yamamoto, there wasn’t even a meeting, and they signed with the Dodgers, and to be honest, I felt exhausted. That’s why it’s so sad.’’

[emphasis added].

Needless to say, Darvish’s plan did not work, as Ohtani and Yamamoto are Dodgers for the conceivable future. Moreover, the preceding sentence does not say the plan cannot work. Just because Darvish had this crazy idea does not mean it is okay to try and duplicate that flight of fancy without giving it some thought.

The logical conclusion of the above reasoning is that a team that could and did sign both Ohtani and Yamamoto would then focus on signing 22-year-old Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki. Fast-forward to January 2025.

Enter the Phenom

In his brief NPB career, Sasaki has shown flashes of Hall of Fame greatness and that statement might be underselling how good he has been. When Dodger fans are asked about the most dominant pitching performance they have seen, most answers will be the same: the night Clayton Kershaw was almost perfect against the Rockies in 2014.

Fifteen strikeouts, no walks, and only one errant Hanley Ramirez throw kept Kershaw from true perfection. Kershaw’s Game Score for this effort was a spectacular 102. Game Score is a metric designed by Bill James where scores range from 0 to 100 with an average performance that has traditionally been 50 points but with the advent of openers, the baseline score is now 40 points.

What if I told you there was a performance that made Kershaw’s night seem almost pedestrian? On April 10, 2022, Sasaki pitched NPB’s first perfect game in almost 30 years, with 19 strikeouts, hitting 162 kmph (~100.5 mph) deep into the start.

Sasaki’s game was the literal best game ever by Game Score at 106, topping Kerry Wood’s 20-strikeout game in 1998 (105) and Max Scherzer’s 17-strikeout no-hitter in 2015 (104).

For an encore, in his next start against the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, Sasaki was perfect for another eight innings before his manager Tadahito Iguchi channeled Dave Roberts and pulled him with the perfect game still intact with a 17-inning consecutive perfect innings streak. Even the only-applicable-to-me 14 “consecutive” innings of Kershaw perfection seems pedestrian compared to such mastery from a 21-year-old.

The streak of perfection ended on the first pitch of Sasaki’s following start. Baseball!

Sasaki did face off against Yamamoto exactly once while they were both in NPB in 2023. Per Twitter user Yakyu Cosmopolitan, Sasaki outdueled Yamamoto.

How does Sasaki do it?

Now, one might think Sasaki was just a flamethrower, as he currently has the record for the fastest pitch in the NPB at 165 kmph (~102.5 mph). Those people would be wrong, as his fastball is not even his outpitch; that pitch would be his splitter.

There is an argument that Sasaki’s pitch is a forkball, but forkballs are typically slower than a splitter, which has less break but more speed. Somehow, Sasaki’s pitch combines the best of both pitches and is absolutely filthy. I could watch this overlay for hours.

Aram Leighton at JustBaseball.com called Sasaki’s splitter the easiest 80-grade he has ever given out. At the time of Leighton’s essay, in 2023, Sasaki’s splitter was keeping opponents to an OPS in the low .200s while throwing the pitch about 40% of the time. Moreover, Sasaki lands the pitch for a strike almost 70% of the time.

Per Yuri Karasawa of JapanBall, before the 2024 season, across 283 ²⁄₃ IP over 46 career starts, Sasaki has posted 13.7 WAR with 2.00 ERA, 1.67 FIP, and .84 WHIP. Sasaki currently boasts a career 11.9 K/9 and 1.8 BB/9, which is collectively 29.3K-BB%, almost ten percent better than Yoshinobu Yamamoto (20.5% in NPB) and almost 5% better than Jacob deGrom in MLB (25.2%).

With the above information, one might credibly ask, how is Sasaki, only the pitcher with the highest ceiling, an unfinished prospect?

Diamond in the rough

Yamamoto earned the highest pitching contract ever for a pitcher due to his combination of stuff and pedigree, with three consecutive Eiji Sawamura awards. If Sasaki has flaws, they are two-fold, played out during the 2024 season. He only pitched 111 innings, but they were elite.

Durability

Sasaki has only pitched a career-high of 129⅓ innings in NPB in 2022 before succumbing to fatigue. In 2023, Sasaki went on his incredible run over 13 starts before succumbing to a torn oblique muscle in July that sidelined him for most of the rest of the season. Since making his debut in NPB, Sasaki has averaged about 17.25 starts a year and 103⅔ innings of work.

In 2024, Sasaki rebounded but pitched only 111 innings over 18 starts. However, in 20 extra innings, he was not able to duplicate his strikeout total from 2023. It is worth noting that Sasaki missed time in 2024 with an oblique injury and shoulder fatigue.

One can envision a Japanese Paul Skenes with a higher upside in the right light. But in the least flattering light, if you are having flashbacks to Dustin May with subtitles, you would not technically be wrong except for one aspect: Sasaki has yet to suffer an arm injury.

For a point of comparison, Sasaki is 6’2”, whereas Yamamoto is 5’10”. Personally, while Yamamoto answered a lot of questions about his durability in 2024, he did basically pitch only half a season. In the worst-case scenario, Sasaki might do the same thing, which could be ameliorated with careful management in MLB.

Sasaki needs a third pitch

Aram Leighton of Just Baseball wrote an excellent summary of Sasaki’s arsenal in July 2023. As described above, Sasaki has probably the best pitch in the world with his Super Fork and he has a world-class fastball.

Sasaki also throws a slider, which was clearly a work in progress after 2023 and was even more so in 2024. Video included in Leighton’s essays from 2023 showed that the pitch has more of a sweeping action in a 12-6 direction rather than breaking 9-3. Sasaki has far less control on this pitch, which, depending on how he throws it, can either mimic a cutter or a slider.

Frankly, Mark Prior and company would have a field day getting Sasaki to pick a pitch to refine his arsenal, but that help would require Sasaki to sign with the Dodgers as soon as possible.

In 2024, Sasaki did try to work incorporating his slider more. Sasaki’s velocity on his fastball dipped, which, combined with his godlike forkball, meant that batters were more apt to try and square up against the fastball. His slider did improve, but a curveball or some other pitch out of that arm slot needs to be developed to incorporate the level. His fastball velocity dipped slightly, but to be successful at the major league level long-term, he will need a third option, just like Kershaw did when he entered baseball.

Closing Thoughts

Any team would gladly sign Sasaki in a heartbeat based on his upside. The troubling effects on NPB as a result of the Marines posting Sasaki are outside the scope of this essay but do merit analysis and discussion. But based purely on baseball stuff, Sasaki is the real deal.

Dodger fans will get to see that development for years to come. If one’s floor is Dustin May, then one truly has found a monster out of NPB, then the Dodgers snagged someone with a ceiling higher than Pittsburgh Pirates phenom Paul Skenes. What a monster indeed.