SAN ANTONIO — Roki Sasaki is so enormously talented that teams have to prepare for the possibility that the Japanese pitcher is about to become an international free agent, even though club officials still don’t know whether that will actually happen this winter. Those complex negotiations between the Chiba Lotte Marines, Nippon Professional Baseball and Major League Baseball could decide the future of the sport’s next potential superstar.
Amid the uncertainty, Sasaki has been a popular name this week at MLB’s general managers’ meetings, where agents, executives and reporters have posted up at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort and Spa. The early buzz, of course, has centered around the Los Angeles Dodgers because it recently seems like they always get what they want. But Sasaki entering the posting system at the age of 23 would create a frenzy.
Here’s what you need to know, based on information from league sources:
Why Sasaki may have to wait
NPB’s rules and working agreement with MLB do not guarantee that Sasaki will become a free agent this offseason. All NPB players need nine years of service time in Japan before qualifying for international free agency. Sasaki has just four, so he would need cooperation from his team to make the jump.
Financial incentives may compel the Chiba Lotte Marines to retain Sasaki for now. Through the posting system, Japanese teams receive money for releasing the player, fees that are calculated based on the signing bonus and different percentages for certain salary thresholds.
Given Sasaki’s age, he would only be eligible to sign a minor-league contract under MLB’s posting rules. That potential deal would be funded through international bonus pool money. Every club’s current allotment is less than $8 million.
Thus, there’s a huge pay discrepancy between what Sasaki would get now — and, as a byproduct, what the Chiba Lotte Marines would get now — versus waiting until after he turns 25 years old.
Roki Sasaki struck out nine over eight scoreless innings in Game 1 against the Fighters. pic.twitter.com/O5IsZYR5sB
— Jason Coskrey (@JCoskrey) October 12, 2024
Follow the money
If Sasaki were to be posted this offseason, he’d be looking at a bonus similar to what Shohei Ohtani received when he faced the same limitations. In 2017, Ohtani chose the Los Angeles Angels after a fierce recruiting battle, signing for $2.3 million, a fraction of his eventual production and the value he generated for the West Coast franchise.
The differences between major- and minor-league contracts — and being 23 or 25 in these cases — are enormous.
By waiting until after his 25th birthday to go through the posting process last winter, Yoshinobu Yamamoto landed a record-setting $325 million deal with the Dodgers. The posting fee to Yamamoto’s previous team, the Orix Buffaloes, cost the Dodgers an additional $50.6 million.
Executives said that they would not expect Sasaki to hold up the pitching market in the way that Yamamoto did a year ago because of the bonus pool limitations.
Teams that would be in the mix
In theory, every club should be involved since the investment would be a relatively small amount of money. The difference between one club’s pool of international bonus money and another club’s is marginal. It wouldn’t be an escalating bidding war as much as a recruiting battle.
Still, the prevailing thought in the industry is that the Dodgers loom as the favorite. Sasaki’s exact preferences, though, are not yet known. The New York Mets and Chicago Cubs are among the teams that have heavily scouted him. On Wednesday, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said he traveled to Japan in September to watch Sasaki pitch as a way of expressing a level of interest and respect. And Stearns certainly isn’t the only powerful executive who made that gesture.
The New York Yankees and San Diego Padres are also among the groups that have extensively scouted and signed players from Asia in recent years. And teams would presumably get a chance to make their presentations to Sasaki, trying to sell him on a vision.
NPB sets Dec. 15 as the last posting date for the cycle. Then there’s a 45-day negotiating window to sign from the day a player gets posted. That deadline and window is the same whether a player signs a major-league deal or a minor-league contract.
Scouting report
With a 100 mph fastball and a devastating splitter, Sasaki profiles as a potential top-of-the-rotation starter. “He reminds me of Jacob deGrom,” one industry source said. “He’d develop into a No. 1.”
“If he was someone in the amateur draft,” one high-ranking executive said, “he’d easily be a top-five draft pick, probably better.”
GO DEEPER
Roki Sasaki has top-shelf stuff. How would it translate to Major League Baseball?
Sasaki is younger than Yamamoto, without the same polish to his game or track record of logging innings. Due in part to injuries, Sasaki’s NPB workload thus far (less than 400 innings) is not even half of what Yamamoto had produced. That experience helped Yamamoto adjust faster at Dodger Stadium, where he beat the Padres in a playoff elimination game and won a World Series game against the Yankees.
Sasaki’s learning curve could be steeper. There’s also still plenty of room to grow and a sense that the challenge of pitching on the sport’s biggest stage would accelerate that development.
“He’s not the finished product that Yamamoto is,” one club official said. “But there’s not many people in the world who are more talented.”
(Top photo of Roki Sasaki pitching for Japan in 2023: Eric Espada / Getty Images)
