The Los Angeles Dodgers Have Landed Roki Sasaki

Main League Baseball had its “Kevin Durant is a Warrior” second on Friday, when 23-year-old Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki agreed to signal with the defending World Collection champion Los Angeles Dodgers for $6.5 million. Sasaki himself introduced his determination by way of his Instagram, whereas his bonus was reported on X by The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya and Alden González of ESPN.

If he can keep wholesome, Sasaki is a possible front-of-the-rotation arm who has the expertise to win Cy Younger Awards. When he’s been absolutely operational, his fastball has averaged practically 99 mph, he has an elite splitter, and his slider grew to become a useable weapon in 2022. He joins a loaded Dodgers roster that has 5 or 6 different gamers who both have received a Cy Younger or MVP (Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Blake Snell), or might conceivably accomplish that of their greatest season (Tyler Glasnow and possibly Yoshinobu Yamamoto). One and a half of these gamers weren’t even on final 12 months’s Dodgers title group. As I’m scripting this, the Dodgers haven’t but introduced the signing. Although Sasaki’s contract is technically a minor league deal, and he isn’t but on the 40-man roster, he’s overwhelmingly prone to break camp with the Dodgers’ huge league membership and be a part of their squad that opens the season towards the Cubs in Japan on March 18-19.

Sasaki didn’t have his peak stuff in 2024 (extra on that under), however in his 4 NPB seasons – 414 2/3 IP, 275 H, 0.883 WHIP (lol), 524 Okay, 91 BB, 2.02 ERA – he has a minimum of met, and arguably exceeded, the all-world expectations foisted upon him since he was in highschool. He has been a seen as a generational expertise, the LeBron James of Japanese baseball if you’ll, since his junior 12 months. His exploits in Japan have been Herculean. Sasaki’s fastball was touching 101 in highschool; he as soon as threw practically 500 pitches in an eight-day span, together with a 12-inning, 194-pitch full recreation throughout which he additionally hit the game-winning two-run homer.

He was the primary choose within the 2019 NPB Draft by the Chiba Lotte Marines, had a sub-2.00 ERA in his 2021 rookie season, after which transcended the game in 2022 when he threw 17 consecutive good innings that April. The 6-foot-2 righty retired 52 consecutive batters throughout that stretch, greater than the MLB file of 47. It was at this level that Sasaki grew to become one thing approaching a world family title. His fastball averaged simply shy of 99 mph and touched 103 mph in 2022, making him the hardest-throwing pitcher within the historical past of NPB. He was having a fair higher 2023 – 85 IP, 39% Okay%, 5% BB%, 62% GB%, 1.88 ERA, 0.92 FIP — earlier than he was shut down with an indirect tear that July. It value him to many of the remainder of that season.

Then in 2024, Sasaki missed time with shoulder soreness, and his stuff was down when he pitched. His strikeout-to-walk ratio was roughly halved in comparison with 2023. Listed here are some splits illustrating the dip:

His bouts with harm mixed with this dip in efficiency create some threat that we’ve already seen Sasaki’s peak. He’s a spindly man with a really violent supply, and accidents might conceivably be one thing he offers with ceaselessly. This, plus the Dodgers’ unbelievable depth of beginning pitchers, means Sasaki will be dealt with with excessive warning in his first 12 months if the Dodgers so select. He’ll seemingly present premium fee efficiency and fewer by way of innings quantity, a minimum of initially. If Sasaki’s fastball returns to its prior stage of efficiency and his physique retains getting stronger into his mid- and late-20s, then we’re speaking a few frequent Cy Younger candidate within the mildew of Kevin Gausman or Nathan Eovaldi, besides Sasaki signed for simply $6.5 million and is topic to the identical six-year window of group management as some other rookie.

The Dodgers started the 2025 Worldwide Signing Interval with a $5,146,200 bonus pool, tied for the second lowest in baseball. Sasaki’s deal is reportedly for $6.5 million. MLB guidelines dictate that groups can commerce for as much as 60% of their unique pool house, which places Los Angeles’ most potential pool at simply over $8.2 million. The Dodgers made two trades for bonus house on Friday, one with the Phillies (for prospect Dylan Campbell) and one with the Reds (for prospect Arnaldo Lantigua) for a mixed complete someplace within the vary of $2.25—$2.5 million in further house. (The specifics of the Phillies deal are unknown however have a $250,000 vary.) Within the days main as much as the beginning of the 2025 worldwide signing interval on January 15, three prospects who had verbal agreements with the Dodgers modified groups: Darell Morel (Pirates), Oscar Patiño (White Sox), Teilon Serrano (Twins). All three appear to have carried out so of their very own volition — although seemingly in response to the danger that Sasaki could be a Dodger — and received more cash from their new groups than they had been slated to obtain from Los Angeles. Cuban journalist Francys Romero reported that the Dodgers intend to honor their different agreements, which they’ll need to get carried out with, at most, roughly $1.7 million (their $8.2 max pool minus Sasaki’s bonus). The ripple results of Sasaki’s signing — which up to now are these prospects’ altering organizations for more cash and a few bonus house trades that included marginal prospects — have been comparatively benign.

The place ought to Sasaki fall on Ben Clemens’ annual midseason Commerce Worth rankings? If he’s wholesome and productive on a rookie deal, with six years of group management, one might argue he belongs in Paul Skenes and Elly De La Cruz territory, in the midst of the highest 10. The excess worth of Sasaki’s deal for the Dodgers is nearly incalculable. Along with his signing bonus and league minimal rookie wage, the Dodgers might want to pay Sasaki’s NPB membership, Chiba Lotte Marines, a 20% posting payment of $1.3 million. It makes their first-year outlay for Sasaki about $8.5 million if you embody his league-minimum wage. That’s lower than the primary three picks within the 2024 draft obtained for his or her bonuses. Sasaki’s on-field efficiency is prone to outpace his wage a number of occasions over, plus he’s additionally now an intercontinental superstar within the second-largest media market within the U.S., on the group with the game’s largest world star, and producing curiosity and income on each side of the Pacific Ocean. That is as quintessential an instance of “the wealthy get richer” as you’ll discover in sports activities, the place newbie participant acquisition is nearly all the time tailor-made to funnel elite younger expertise to the dangerous groups.

Will the focus of expertise in Los Angeles trigger significant disillusionment amongst baseball followers? As excited as everyone seems to be to observe Sasaki pitch, our tradition tends to tire and make villains of dynastic sports activities franchises. One of many many (seemingly spurious) issues that Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, said publicly throughout a poorly mic’d Winter Conferences press convention was that Sasaki didn’t have an satisfying expertise with the media in Japan, going as far as to say it could be useful for him to land in a small market in an effort to keep away from extra of it. Properly, now Sasaki has chosen the antithesis of that. He’s deliberately transferring into the place the place the highlight is already shining brightest, and the place most baseball followers look with ire on the reigning champs. Is $6.5 million sufficient to topic your self to schadenfreude from swaths of three completely different international locations within the occasion that the 2025 Dodgers are the 2012 Marlins or 2011 Eagles? Is “begrudging respect” Sasaki’s cultural ceiling? These are far more troublesome questions that may take years to reply.