Roki Sasaki says he’s signing with the Dodgers, giving them a monster Japanese trio in rotation

Many expected Roki Sasaki to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers. They were right.

The flame-throwing Japanese right-hander agreed to a deal with the Dodgers on Friday, according to a post on his Instagram account.

The Dodgers beat out virtually the entire MLB for Sasaki, who met with several teams to evaluate what they could bring to the table beyond money. The Dodgers, San Diego Padres and Toronto Blue Jays would be the finalists, with the Dodgers and Padres considered the co-favorites for most of the process.

After receiving the signing bonus, Sasaki will have the same status as any other MLB rookie once he debuts, going through years of pre-arbitration and arbitration before reaching the free agency after six years of service in the MLB.

Meanwhile, Sasaki’s NPB team, the Chiba Lotte Marines, will receive a posting fee worth 20% of the signing bonus. In four seasons with the Marines, Sasaki posted a 2.02 ERA and 0.883 WHIP with 524 strikeouts in 414 2/3 innings.

Just call them the Samurai Dodgers

This deal gives the Dodgers one of the hottest pitchers in recent memory, as well as another Japanese star on a roster that already includes Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Ohtani, Yamamoto and Sasaki are expected to make up half of a six-player rotation for Los Angeles next season, cementing the club as Japan’s MLB national team.

The trio all played together on Samurai Japan (the national team’s local nickname) during the 2023 World Baseball Classic, in which Ohtani won the country’s third title. Since then, their star power on both sides of the Pacific Ocean has only increased.

The Dodgers were widely considered to be Sasaki’s destination during his first assignment, and well, there was good reason for that. They were able to offer Sasaki the chance to play for a consistent World Series contender (and recent two-time winner), one of the best pitching development programs in MLB, two teammates he knows very well, on a day of Extra rest between starts thanks to the six-man rotation and the ability to stay visible in Japan.

Money was a much smaller part of the equation for this free agent, but the Dodgers still had an advantage. The rest of MLB might have some complaints about this.

Roki Sasaki set a huge pile of money on fire by doing this

There’s really no debate about that. The Dodgers just got the best deal MLB has seen since the Los Angeles Angels landed the first six years of Ohtani’s MLB career for the price of approximately $22.3 million (including $20 million went to the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters).

It’s no coincidence that both of these players were young Japanese stars who came to the United States. In 2017, MLB instituted new Japanese posting rules that subjected players under the age of 25 to the same international bonus pool system used to bring teenagers out of Latin America. While Yamamoto, who was 25 when assigned to the Orix Buffaloes last offseason, received $325 million with his 12-year contract with the Dodgers, Ohtani and Sasaki were each limited to receiving an amount seven digits.

Why would 23-year-old Sasaki do that rather than wait two years and land his own nine-figure contract? This is a question that will be worth asking once he arrives in the United States. The Ohtani precedent is a pretty solid motivator, as it led to a happy outcome in the form of $700 million for the player.

The biggest question would be why the Marines sent Sasaki. For several years, there had been rumors that Sasaki wanted to be assigned to the MLB, much to the dismay of the Marines. The Buffaloes received more than $50 million, a franchise-changing amount of money from the NPB, for Yamamoto, while the Marines will settle for a tiny portion of that sum.

When they assigned him, the Marines said they wanted to help Sasaki achieve his dreams, but there was no way they would have done it if they weren’t obligated to do so in some way. other. Japanese contracts are very different from those in MLB, so it’s conceivable that Sasaki could have negotiated some sort of side deal to force his assignment at some point.

Dodgers could get draft pick by signing Roki Sasaki

But wait, there’s more.

Here are three things that could be true on opening day:

• Sasaki will be on the active roster of the Dodgers

• Sasaki will have his rookie eligibility intact

• Sasaki will be on at least two top 100 prospect lists from Baseball America, ESPN and MLB.com

If all three of those things happen, Sasaki will qualify for the MLB prospect promotion incentive. That means if Sasaki wins Rookie of the Year or finishes in the top three in Cy Young voting before going to arbitration, the Dodgers will get a draft pick directly after the first round.

Roki Sasaki is an elite talent but not a finished product

While there’s no denying that the Dodgers received an outrageous deal, it’s also important to realize that Sasaki isn’t quite the pitcher Yamamoto was when he first came to MLB.

Yamamoto was noticeably more polished late in his NPB career, after winning three straight MVPs, Eiji Sawamura Awards and pitching Triple Crowns. He joined the Dodgers with five usable pitches (three of them considered plus or better) and the command to make them all work.

Sasaki certainly succeeded in NPB, but he succeeded with essentially two pitches: a fastball that sits in the high 90s and one of the nastiest splitters in the known universe. Those are both great pitches, but two-pitch pitchers rarely succeed as starters against MLB hitters. Sasaki made some progress with a slider last season, and his new coaches will certainly push him to continue working on it.

Sasaki’s usage and health might be of more concern. Because Japanese starters pitch once a week, Sasaki never pitched more than 130 innings in a season. He also had arm issues last year, which would be concerning for any pitcher who throws as hard as he does. It’s not a given that Sasaki will be able to consistently go 160 innings over the course of a season, much less the 200 expected of MLB aces.

It’s more useful to compare Sasaki to some of the big pitching prospects of recent years. He has upside like Paul Skenes and Stephen Strasburg, but both of those players developed devastating secondary offerings after being drafted (Skenes’ “splinker” and Strasburg’s changeup). Strasburg’s ongoing injury problems also provide a warning to pitchers who expect to reach 100 points in a start.

Again, Sasaki is preternaturally talented, but fans expecting him to dominate from day one might be disappointed.

Roki Sasaki’s free agency suffered collateral damage

The most unfortunate part of Sasaki going down the path he did isn’t the money it cost himself. This is the money he could have cost other players.

Each MLB team updated their international bonus pool on January 15, giving them each an amount ranging from $5 million to $8 million to sign players from around the world. While it may seem like the Dodgers just used newly available money to sign Sasaki, the reality is that the money was likely intended for teenagers who had verbal agreements with the team.

It’s an open secret that teams make handshake deals with representatives of young players to sign a set amount when they turn 16. These deals are non-binding, however, and if a much more attractive prospect comes along, like Sasaki, there’s not much these players can do if the team they agreed with decides to go in another direction.

Even before the Dodgers landed Sasaki, there were reports that they attempted to push back handshake deals to the 2026 cycle, with one player reportedly turning them down to join the Pittsburgh Pirates.

It’s possible that the Dodgers have been considering bringing Sasaki into their 2025 international class for some time, but the reality is that that pool of money is never supposed to go to more established talents like him. Both the international signing system and the Japanese posting system are very flawed, and those flaws have worked together to create a situation that could cause MLB and NPB to rethink how it all works.