The Dodgers got another star out of Japan. Roki Sasaki announced Friday evening that he will sign with Los Angeles. Wasserman’s client will reportedly receive a $6.5MM signing bonus. The Dodgers have not officially announced the deal, which could be finalized at any time until the evening of January 23.
As an international rookie, Sasaki is limited to a minor league contract with a hard cap signing bonus. He won’t make the 40-man roster early, though the team will select him from the MLB draft on Opening Day. In the end, it was a result that was not surprising, although other results seemed possible at times. The Dodgers have long been considered the most logical landing spot for Sasaki, and while the Padres and Blue Jays are trying to make a surprise run, the most likely outcome has already been achieved.
Sasaki’s free agency has been long awaited. He started playing in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball in 2021 at the young age of 19 and continued to post good results over the past few years. Thanks to triple-digit velocity on his fastball and a deadly splitter, he has been able to post a 2.10 earned run average in 394 2/3 innings over the last four years. He struck out 32.7% of the batters he faced and limited walks to a 5.7% clip.
That performance would make him one of the top free agents this offseason, which would set him up for a big payday. However, Sasaki seemed determined to start his big league career immediately, regardless of money.
If he had waited until he was 25 years old, he would have been considered a professional under MLB rules, and thus able to sign for whatever value the market would bear. That was the way it was taken Yoshinobu Yamamotowho received a $325MM guarantee from the Dodgers last season.
But Sasaki is making the move now, having just turned 23 years old, which means he is considered a rookie and thus subject to MLB’s international bonus program. Under that system, each team receives a set amount to spend on international players every year. This year, each team receives between $5-8MM, a small amount compared to what Yamamoto received. That at least made it seem like any club could sign him, since big money clubs couldn’t pass up smaller clubs like many other free agents.
However, despite that playing field, there were still plenty of good reasons to expect the Dodgers to emerge victorious. Sasaki and his agent Joel Wolfe haven’t revealed much about player preferences, but logically, the Dodgers are an attractive landing spot. They play on the West Coast, which often attracts players from Asia simply because of the proximity. They have a strong record of success on the field, having made the playoffs every year going back to 2013 and recently winning the World Series a few months ago. They also lined up a few other Japanese stars in Yamamoto as well Shohei Ohtani.
It is not known how much Sasaki will rate those factors compared to others. Wolfe pushed back on the idea that Sasaki cares about the presence of other Japanese players. He also suggested last month that Sasaki might choose a smaller market, due to some disagreements with the media during his time in Japan.
There have been arguments for him to consider the circumstances in which he would prefer to go elsewhere. The Padres could offer a smaller market than the Dodgers and it was reported that Sasaki has a strong relationship with the current Padre. Yu Darvish. The Blue Jays are owned by Rogers Communications, the club’s primary broadcaster, which may have given them the ability to limit Sasaki’s media access. The fact that they are the only MLB team in Canada also opened up more licensing opportunities for Japanese companies, as opposed to sharing the LA market with Ohtani and Yamamoto. The Jays also had a larger international bonus pool than the Dodgers and added to it by acquiring more pool space from the Guardians in a trade earlier today.
But despite any short-term drama that played out this offseason, something more obvious happened. Sasaki has joined a team that is already full of stars such as Ohtani, Yamamoto, Mookie Betts again Freddie Freeman. 2005 was the last time the Dodgers won less than 80 games and now they are adding another very talented player to the mix.
Adding Sasaki’s talent is a huge boost to the roster but also huge from a financial perspective. As a rookie, Sasaki will only be able to make the minor league this year until he becomes eligible for settlement or signs an extension. That’s a big deal for a club like the Dodgers, who already owe the aforementioned stars big bucks Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Teoscar Hernández and many others.
It also gives them an embarrassment of riches in the rotation, at least in terms of pure talent. Their rotation mix now includes Sasaki, Ohtani, Yamamoto, Glasnow, Snell, Tony Gonsolin again Dustin May. That is almost inevitable Clayton Kershaw eventually you will re-sign. Even each one Gavin Stone, Emmett Sheehan, Kyle Hurt again Ryan River could be missed for much or all of next season, the Dodgers’ rotation should be eight or nine players deep. Landon Knack, Justin Wrobleski, Nick Frasso and once-honored rookie Bobby Miller they are all there as deep starters.
It is an amazing gift for one group. The Dodgers won the World Series last year despite their playoff rotation. This year, the rotation should be strong until October. That’s despite the injury risk associated with everyone on the team. Glasnow has never gone over 134 MLB innings in a season. Yamamoto was limited to 18 starts in his first MLB season with a rotator cuff strain. Snell only pitched 130 frames twice. Kershaw, Gonsolin and May all missed most or all of last season recovering from major surgeries. Ohtani had elbow surgery in late 2023 and did not pitch last year.
Sasaki comes with many fitness questions of its own. He averaged less than 100 innings per season during his four years at NPB. He never reached 130 innings and was limited to 111 frames in 18 appearances last year. Sasaki suffered two injuries in 2024: oblique tears and shoulder fatigue.
The Dodgers will gladly take the tradeoff of another IL stints for quality control. Los Angeles doesn’t value a lot of innings. They are content to accept the risk of injury as they chase down pitchers. That’s powered in part by their resources, of course, even if money isn’t Sasaki’s thing.
Every team would have been happy to sign Sasaki for $6.5MM. The Dodgers will also owe a $1.3MM posting fee to the pitcher’s NPB team, the Chiba Lotte Marines. The referral fee is equal to the size of the player’s signing bonus. Since Sasaki’s bonus had reached several million dollars, the Marines were limited to 20% of whatever he received.
It’s coming off a $7.8MM investment to acquire Japan’s most talented striker. The Dodgers have signed NPB’s leading pitcher in consecutive offseasons. They will have Sasaki in the standard six-year window to control the team related to any promotion. He will be scheduled for salaries equal to the league minimum for the next three seasons. He then went through a three-year arbitration process. MLB rules prevent the Dodgers and Sasaki from reaching any kind of understanding regarding a contract extension to exceed bonus pool limits. While there’s no official cutoff that the Dodgers could look to extend Sasaki, they can’t have any kind of illegal long-term deal in the works right now.
The Dodgers opened this signing period tied with the Giants for the lowest bonus pool. They had $5.1462MM to spend on international amateurs on January 15. The Dodgers let several of their verbal agreements and young prospects expire in order to keep Sasaki’s cap space open. They added to their pool by facing a non-league player Dylan Campbell to the Phillies and sending an outside prospect Arnaldo Lantigua in Cincinnati tonight. Their exact bonus share is not known, but Sasaki will take a large portion of the pool. That’s a trade every team would happily make for a potential plug-and-play ace.
It was brutal for the fans of the other two finalists. The Padres found out this morning that they were out of trouble. They have many holes in their rotation and now face an even tougher challenge in the NL West. The Blue Jays finished second in yet another free agent talent. Toronto lost to Ohtani, Juan Soto, Corbin Burns and Sasaki (among others) within the last two seasons alone.
Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times first reported the signing bonus. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.
