Roki Sasaki he is coming to MLB next season. His NPB team, Chiba Lotte Marines, announced last night (via X) that they intend to make their ace available through a referral program. They did not reveal a specific date when they will open the shipping window. Sasaki will be represented by Wasserman, on Twitter Franys Romero.
The announcement opens one of the top stories of the offseason. Sasaki, who turned 23 last week, is the best striker in Japan. He is one of the most talented strikers in the world. It’s the second consecutive season that MLB teams will compete for NPB’s undisputed best pitcher. Unlike Yoshinobu Yamamoto bidding, Sasaki’s earning power reaches several million dollars.
MLB classifies players who come out of the league before the age of 25 as rookies. Those players can only sign a minor league contract and are subject to a hard bonus limit. Whichever team signs Sasaki is allowed to add him to the MLB roster on Opening Day – he won’t start the season in Triple-A even though his first contract will be a minor league contract – but he can’t. sign for big money.
After signing, Sasaki will face the same six-year window that applies to any player called up in the farm system. He would play the next three seasons at near-minimum league salaries before solving three problems. Sasaki would not return to the open market until the 2030-31 offseason. He would be eligible to sign an extension during his team’s control window, but MLB has the ability to block the contract if it deems it exceeds bonus pool limits. There’s no set formula for what might prompt MLB to step in, but it’s safe to say that Sasaki won’t sign a massive extension within weeks of agreeing to a modest signing bonus.
Yamamoto is waiting for his 25th birthday to avoid the bonus limit. That freed him up to sign with the Dodgers for $325MM, the largest guaranteed hitter in history. Sasaki didn’t want to follow that path. Instead he prioritized moving to MLB as quickly as possible, even though that required the cooperation of the Marines.
NPB players are not eligible for international free agency until they have completed nine years of service time. Sasaki has played at the highest level in Japan for four years. He failed to force the Mariners to send him to MLB teams last season. He gets his wish this time. There has been speculation that Sasaki’s contract may contain some sort of clause to force the club’s hand.
Whether it’s due to a contractual obligation or to honor the player’s wishes, the Marines will lose their ace on a base basis. The posting agreement between MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball ties NPB’s team compensation to the free agent’s contract value. An MLB team that signs an outbound player pays a fee to the Japanese team in addition to what goes to the player. The fee is a fixed amount calculated as 20% of the first $25MM of the deal, 17.5% of the next $25MM, and 15% of additional costs.
Yamamoto’s deal also resulted in his former team, the Orix Buffaloes. The Dodgers paid the Buffaloes $50.625MM to release him from his contract. The Marines will get half of that. If Sasaki signs for $10MM — and there’s a good chance his bonus will come in under that — the team will get a $2MM cap hit.
The Mariners’ loss will be the MLB team’s gain. Analysts project Sasaki as a top-of-the-rotation starter. He can get into triple digits with his fastball and has a potentially dangerous splitter. His fastball lost a bit of life this past season, though the pitch still sits in the high 90s. Marquee’s Lance Brozdowski reports (YouTube link) that Sasaki averaged 97.1 MPH this year after sitting at 99 MPH in ’23. That’s above average for an MLB starter despite trending in the wrong direction.
While the fastball’s speed is eye-catching, evaluators suggest that his low-90s split is his best pitch. He uses the slider as his top breaking ball, and while that might not be considered a fastball-splitter combination, it’s a potential above-average offering. The Athletic’s Eno Sarris broke down Sasaki’s pitch combination in detail this week.
Writing for Baseball America in 2023, Kyle Glaser portrayed Sasaki as a professional who would warrant a first-round pick if he were in a rookie home system. Glaser ranked Sasaki as the most talented non-MLB player in the ’23 World Baseball Classic, one spot ahead of Yamamoto. Sasaki struck out 11 batters over 7 2/3 innings of four-run ball for the struggling Japanese team.
The 6’2″ hurler posted outstanding numbers for the average at NPB. He has a 2.10 career earned run average in nearly 400 innings. This year’s 2.35 ERA was the highest of any of his four seasons. In a down year, Sasaki struck out about 29% of the batters he faced against a manageable 7.1% walk percentage.
To the extent that there is a knock against Sasaki, it’s his job. He has yet to reach 130 innings in any season. He was limited to 111 frames this year and missed time during the season with an unspecified injury to his pitching arm. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that he suffered a torn oblique. The injury history is a concern when paired with his slight dip in velocity, but it’s unlikely to stop teams from recruiting everyone. The upside of getting a potential top-of-the-rotation arm far outweighs the small cost.
Pasan writes that the Marines are still undecided on when the deployment window will open. Whenever they officially send him, Sasaki has 45 days to decide where to sign. Maybe that will fit nicely into the 2025 calendar. Major League Baseball’s signing periods for international players begin between January 15 and December 15 every year. The teams committed most of that money by 1/15, finalizing contracts that were agreed upon early.
Sasaki may choose to wait until next year’s signing window opens. Clubs already have verbal agreements with young players – most of them from Latin America aged 16 – for their 2025 bonus window. Clubs can opt out of some of those illegal deals to redistribute Sasaki’s money. Teams are also allowed to trade for international signing bonus space up to a point. A team can receive up to 75% of its initial share of the pool. A club that knows it will have no chance of acquiring Sasaki may be willing to trade its bonus cap space to a team pursuing the Japanese star for other MLB prospects or help.
In April, Ben Badler of Baseball America published a list of the teams’ bonus allocations during the 25-year signing period. The Reds, Tigers, Marlins, Brewers, Twins, A’s, Mariners and Rays have the largest pools at $7.5555MM each. If one of these teams acquired another 75% in a trade and gave the entire share to Sasaki, his maximum signing bonus would be around $13.22MM.
You will probably sign for very little money. If Sasaki were to prioritize money, he would wait until he was 25 and seek a deal that rivaled or beat Yamamoto’s. As was the case with Shohei Ohtani in 2017, Sasaki is leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table in the short term to get to MLB quickly. All 30 teams will be in the top tier financially. His free agency will be about the team’s competitive ideas, plans for the development of the output and the preferences of the area.
There is already enough speculation about the Dodgers as a place to stay. They are certainly in good shape from a competitive and geographic point of view. Financial strength isn’t a direct consideration for this free agent, though, and any team can put Sasaki in the budget if they’re genuinely open to all offers.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.
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