23-year-old right-hander had a 2.35 ERA with 129 strikeouts and 32 walks in 111 innings for Chiba Lotte Marines in 2024. He’ll be subject to MLB’s international bonus pool limits.
The Dodgers last offseason signed the best pitcher in Japan when Yoshinobu Yamamoto joined Los Angeles as a free agent. That opportunity is upon them again potentially this offseason, as 23-year-old right-hander Roki Sasaki will be posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines.
The NPB team made the announcement late Friday night that they have begun the process of posting Sasaki
“Ever since he joined the team, we have heard from him that he dreamed of playing in America,” Chiba Lotte general manager Naoki Matsumoto said in a statement. “After making a comprehensive judgment over the past five years, we have decided to respect his wish. We hope he will do his best as a representative of Japan. We are rooting for him.”
Sasaki had a 2.35 ERA in 18 games this season, with 129 strikeouts and 32 walks in 111 innings, which in a relative sense was his worst season as a professional, to give an idea of how talented he is. Sasaki in NPB had a 2.02 ERA with 524 strikeouts and 91 walks in 414⅔ innings, and turned 23 years old last Sunday.
He pitched a perfect game with 19 strikeouts in April 2022, then was pulled after eight perfect innings in his next start. In March 2023, when Sasaki was teammates with Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani for Japan in the World Baseball Classic, J.J. Cooper at Baseball America wrote this of the right-hander:
Sasaki’s arsenal is the type that makes evaluators salivate. His fastball sits 97-100 mph and touches 102 with remarkably little effort. His 89-91 mph splitter is a soul-destroying pitch batters can’t hit even when they know it’s coming. He flashes an above-average slider with late, vertical snap and has a curveball that he can land for strikes. He maintains his velocity deep into his starts, has an athletic, durable, 6-foot-2 frame and fills the strike zone with plus command and control.
The Dodgers’ interest in Sasaki has been no secret, and has been a long time coming.
Under the posting system between Nippon Professional Baseball and MLB, Japanese teams receive a free from the signing MLB team based on the contract signed, on a graduated scale starting at 20 percent, down to 15 percent for any amount exceeding $50 million. For Yamamoto, whose $325 million contract signed last December was the highest ever for any pitcher, the Dodgers paid Orix a posting fee of $50.625 million.
But because Sasaki isn’t yet 25 years old and lacks the requisite professional experience, he is subject to MLB’s international bonus pool, which severely limits his earning power. In the 2024 international signing period, which runs through December 15, total bonus pools ranged from $5.1-7.1 million, and most of that is already spent.
The Dodgers reportedly have somewhere between $2-2.5 million to spend in this period, which is the most in MLB. It made for an awkward, and also amusing moment prior to Game 1 of the World Series at Dodger Stadium, when Ronald Blum of Associated Press during a press conference asked Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman of the team’s interest in Sasaki.
“Are you serious right now? That’s really the question?” Friedman snapped. “This is the World Series, Ron. This is outrageous. You want to talk about our hitting philosophy and the player development. Seriously, this is not important for right now. That’s outrageous. It’s crazy.”
Once a player is posted by an NPB team, MLB teams have 45 days to sign them. It’s at least theoretically possible that Sasaki could be posted in the first week of December to extend his signing window to after January 15, when the 2025 international period opens and teams have more to spend, but even then what Sasaki — and, by extension, Lotte — will receive is a pittance compared to had he waited two more years.
Sasaki in Lotte’s press release said, “Since I joined the team, the team has been listening to my thoughts about my future challenge in the MLB, and I am very grateful to the team for officially allowing me to post now.”
Ohtani was in the same situation prior to the 2018 season, when he signed for $2.3 million. Back then, the Nippon Ham Fighters received a $20 million posting fee, but MLB and NPB shifted to the percentage-based fee system for the next year.
Related reading
- Jack Harris at the Los Angeles Times noted that Friedman and Dodgers VP of player personnel Galen Carr scouted Sasaki in early October.
- Jim Allen on Sasaki’s relationship with marketing company Dentsu, and how that might have affected the posting decision.
- Jeff Passan at ESPN: “Los Angeles will be linked strongly to Sasaki, but assuming he will go to the Dodgers is premature.”