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After seemingly over a year-plus of speculation about whether he’d come overseas, 23-year-old phenom Roki Sasaki is confirmed to be heading stateside via an announcement from his team the Chiba Lotte Marines.
#佐々木朗希 投手について、ポスティングによる米国メジャー・リーグ・ベースボール(MLB)球団への移籍に向けた手続きを開始することにいたしましたので、お知らせします。
— 千葉ロッテマリーンズ (@chibalotte) November 9, 2024
▼松本球団本部長コメント… pic.twitter.com/iwEjGoUS1C
Translated Lotte Marines team comments on the Roki Sasaki posting.
— Yakyu Cosmopolitan (@yakyucosmo) November 9, 2024
Sasaki:
“From the beginning, the team has listened to my future desires to pitch in MLB and I am incredibly grateful that they are allowing me to be posted at this time. There were many things that didn’t go… pic.twitter.com/YQGS4K1AR5
A lot will be written about The Monster Of The Reiwa Era (what a nickname) in the coming weeks, but basically in 414.2 innings in his NPB career, he has a 2.02 ERA and has struck out 524 to just 91 walks. A dominant pitcher with dominant stuff, the primary issue is he simply hasn’t been healthy enough, topping out at 129.1 innings in a single season, though in a weird way that would make him a perfect fit for the Dodgers.
As far evaluations go, Eno Sarris took a look at his stuff and crossover predictors, which seem to grade out well, though he did have a down year in 2024.
Again, though, Sasaki has fallen off some. He had a strikeout-minus-walk rate above 30 percent for two years, and then last year it fell to 21.6 percent. You could be concerned about the declining stuff and results, sure. But that 21.6 percent rate would’ve been fifth on this list, between Masahiro Tanaka and Imanaga. Still pretty good.
Going back to the Dodgers, they have long been considered favorites to land Sasaki.
“The suspicion among many in the industry, almost everyone in the industry, that if this guy is posted, Roki Sasaki becomes available, the Los Angeles Dodgers will be heavy, heavy favorites to sign him,” Rosenthal said Monday on Foul Territory. “And can you imagine what that team would mean in Japan, then. It already has Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto to get Sasaki as well, well it would be even more so Japan’s team.”
Since he’s under the age of 25, the most he can be given is what teams have in international bonus pool money. This hurts the Marines, as they’ll only get 20% of the paltry sum he’ll receive under these constraints (compared to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, for example). No word yet on which period (2024 or 2025) he’ll count towards, but either way the Dodgers seemed positioned well to acquire him.
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Brim hasn’t done a deep dive into Roki yet, but will likely do so now. Last year, he had a prescient evaluation of the pitchers coming over from the NPB, urging them to get Yamamoto instead of waiting for Sasaki … and now they have a chance to get them both.
Sasaki has the best raw stuff in the world right now, but he doesn’t offer the same complete package that Yamamoto has currently. They’d share youth and upside, but Sasaki does not have Yamamoto’s polish or his durability, and it’s not a given that he will if or when he’s posted. It’s a part of the Dodger front office’s job to dream about acquiring him, but they need to compete in 2024 first. Yamamoto would be the second-biggest step they could take this offseason towards making the 2024 team better, though Imanaga and Matsui would also be helpful in smaller ways.
Well, the Dodgers took care of that and got a World Series out of it, and getting Sasaki now would go a long way to help their repeat efforts.
Not that the Dodgers need bargains at this point, but they would be getting an absolute steal in Sasaki, who would be a potential front-line rotation option at near league minimum prices as well. With all the arms coming back from injury in 2024, and still other options on the table in free agency, securing his signature would set the Dodgers up almost comically well for years to come.
Here’s hoping.
