Roki Sasaki’s contract situation, signing process and suitors explained
The first bombshell of the Major League Baseball offseason hit Saturday when the Chiba Lotte Marines announced that 23-year-old pitching phenom Roki Sasaki will be able to sign with an MLB club this winter.
“I will do my best to rise from a minor league contract and become the best player in the world,” Sasaki said in a statement. translated by Yakyu Cosmopolitan“So I have no regrets about my one and only baseball career and can live up to the expectations of everyone who has supported me so far.”
Here’s everything you need to know about Sasaki, his contract situation and his exciting stuff.
Is ‘best player in the world’ really within the range of outcomes?
As long as his compatriot Shohei Ohtani is active, Sasaki will have a hard time claiming that title. But there’s no doubt he has one of the best right arms in baseball. Major league evaluators have scouted Sasaki since he was a teenager in Ofunato, Japan, with a triple-digit fastball, a disappearing splitter and an incredible nickname: the Monster of the Reiwa Era.
In 2022, Sasaki pitched a 19-strikeout perfect game for Chiba Lotte, recording 13 consecutive strikeouts. In his next start, Sasaki threw eight perfect innings with 14 strikeouts before being pulled.
When Sasaki started blowing the doors off Randy Arozarena and Alex Verdugo in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, much of the baseball world began counting down to his eventual arrival in the United States.
Sasaki, who stands a lanky 6 feet tall, is not yet a finished product. “But there aren’t many people in the world who are more talented,” said an MLB club official. Sasaki had a 2.10 ERA through four seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball, the top baseball league in Japan. This year, injuries and declines in speed, equipment and strikeout rate have raised questions, but Sasaki remains highly sought after. Not only because of his youth (just six months older than Paul Skenes) and arm talent (“He reminds me of Jacob deGrom,” said an industry source.) but also because he is the only top-five free agent to play all 30 MLB teams can afford to sign.
How much will it cost to sign Sasaki?
Shockingly little, in modern baseball numbers.
Most Japanese stars who move to the Majors do so after turning 25, when they still have to go through a postal system — with their NPB club receiving a release fee from the signing MLB club — but a Major League deal with a lot can sign money. . Yoshinobu Yamamoto did the latter this offseason, signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers for $325 million over twelve years, while the Dodgers paid his former club, the Orix Buffaloes, about $50 million.
Sasaki’s situation is much more similar to Ohtani’s than Yamamoto’s.
A player who leaves NPB before age 25 is considered an international amateur free agent and may only sign a minor league deal with a bonus paid from the team’s international bonus pool. (For 2025, these pools range from $5.1 million to $7.6 million.) Ohtani was 23 when he signed with the Los Angeles Angels for $2.3 million. The Angels were given six years of contractual control over Ohtani — three years of minimum salary, three years of arbitration — before he hit free agency. Had Ohtani played two more years in Japan, his original MLB contract would have been much more similar to Yamamoto’s. The same goes for Sasaki.
Why wouldn’t Sasaki wait until he can sign a mega deal?
The simplest answer is that he is ready to prove himself against top-tier players.
When Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post visited Japan earlier this year, Chiba Lotte outfielder and former Pittsburgh Pirates star Gregory Polanco said of Sasaki: “He asks me about (the major leagues) every day. I go in and he’s joking, ‘I’m going to this (MLB) team, I’m going to that (MLB) team!’ He is so ready to go.”
Sasaki could also expect that the endorsements he’ll receive from playing in the Majors will offset the fact that he’s postponed his first true MLB free agency until the 2030-31 offseason, when he’ll only turn 29.
Sasaki reportedly asked Chiba Lotte to post him last year after he had a 1.78 ERA in 91 innings. The club opted to keep him for another season. Now they are willing to make him available to MLB clubs. Chiba Lotte is leaving tens of millions of dollars on the table by letting Sasaki leave now instead of in 2026. When Ohtani signed in 2017, NPB clubs could cap their release fee at $20 million – the amount the Angels paid the Nippon-Ham Fighters paid. . But the release fee is now determined as a percentage of the guaranteed value of the agreement; for minor league contracts, the signing team pays the NPB club only 25 percent of the signing bonus.
Why is Chiba letting Lotte Sasaki go now when the release costs are so low?
It makes no financial sense. As Chiba Lotte officials explained it on Saturday, it was a matter of Respecting Sasaki’s wishes to pitch in the majors.
Club director Naoki Matsumoto told reporters: including baseball writer Jim Allenthat the financial implications were not part of their discussions with Sasaki: “He is a representative of Japan and Lotte, so I want him to do his best on the world stage.”
As Allen wrote on Thursday a detailed explanation of Sasaki’s unprecedented situationSome believe Sasaki, the No. 1 selection in the 2019 NPB draft, made an agreement with Chiba Lotte when he signed that the club would draft him at its discretion. There is no public evidence of such an agreement, and Matsumoto denied its existence Saturday.
Which teams are expected to be the leaders?
There’s already a lot of talk about the Dodgers, the reigning World Series champions, landing Sasaki a year after signing Ohtani and Yamamoto. The Dodgers have been tracking Sasaki for years and they will try to be first in line when his recruitment opens. But the truth is that because each team’s financial bid will be essentially equal, there is no way to build a list of favorites without first knowing Sasaki’s preferences.
Maybe he’d rather not be in the wake of Ohtani and Yamamoto.
Maybe he wants to pitch in San Diego with his friend Yu Darvish.
Maybe he wants to be an ace in a small pond. Maybe he wants to be on the East Coast, South Beach or Sacramento. Maybe he saw “Rookie of the Year” and always dreamed of pitching for the Chicago Cubs.
League sources have said this The AthleticsWill Sammon says stability, lifestyle, comfort and a team’s track record of player development are among Sasaki’s priorities. (That last one should send the Tampa Bay Rays front office into turmoil.) Sammon mentioned several suitors for Sasaki’s services – the Dodgers, San Diego Padres, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Cubs – and more will surely surface soon. We’ll learn more once Sasaki’s camp meets with some MLB teams – and others not.
Sasaki’s representation is expected to include Joel Wolfe of the Wasserman agency, which counts Yamamoto, Darvish, Kodai Senga and Seiya Suzuki among its clients. Those four signed all over the map: Darvish with the Texas Rangers, Senga with the Mets, Suzuki with the Cubs, Yamamoto with the Dodgers. With all these free agencies, clubs could buy better odds by simply offering the biggest contract. Sasaki’s bonus is limited. (Teams are not permitted to discuss long-term extensions during negotiations with a ranked player. according to MLB.com.) This is the rare free agency with a level playing field, as far as resources are concerned. It comes down to where Sasaki wants to be.
Make your best pitch.
When will Sasaki sign?
The deadline for posting NPB players is December 15. After that, there is a 45-day period during which the player can negotiate with all 30 MLB clubs.
The MLB international signing period also closes on December 15, with a new one opening on January 15. MLB teams have already used up most of their international signing pool for the year. (The Dodgers have the most international bonus pool money available, with $2.5 million, according to MLB.com(Followed by the Baltimore Orioles’ $2.1 million.) If Sasaki signs after Jan. 15, however, those pools will be replenished — even if much of the money is already earmarked for specific international prospects.
Bottom line: If Sasaki is drafted in December and signs after January 15, he – and Chiba Lotte – will make more money and ensure all 30 teams have bonus pool capacity to offer him. But it still won’t be more than a few million dollars, much less than the signing bonus of a top draft pick.
What can we expect from Sasaki in 2025?
While it’s entirely likely that Sasaki will pitch like an ace from his first start in April, as an MLB rookie he will likely have some workload restrictions, such as a reduced number of pitches or extra rest.
Chiba Lotte was careful with Sasaki’s golden right arm. He did not pitch in 2020, and over the next four seasons he exceeded 100 innings only twice as injuries limited his availability. Sasaki topped out at 129 1/3 innings in 2022, a year in which his 173 strikeouts were second only to Yamamoto’s (205 in 193 innings).
If Sasaki stays healthy, 150 innings is a reasonable estimate for 2025.
GO DEEPER
Roki Sasaki has top shelf stuff. How would it translate to Major League Baseball?
(Photo: Eric Espada/Getty Images)
