Roki Sasaki Expected to Be Posted to MLB Free Agency at Winter Meetings, Per Report

The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres are among the favorites to sign 23-year-old pitcher Roki Sasaki, who is set to open his 45-day window in MLB free agency next week.

Mar 20, 2023; Miami, Florida, USA; Japan starting pitcher Roki Sasaki (14) delivers a pitch during the first inning against Mexico at LoanDepot Park. / Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

Japanese right-handed pitcher Roki Sasaki is expected to be posted to MLB free agency at the Baseball Winter Meetings next week, ESPN's Jeff Passan reported Saturday.

The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal, MLB.com's Mark Feinsand and the New York Post's Jon Heyman were among those to corroborate Passan's report.

The Chiba Lotte Marines, Sasaki's Nippon Professional Baseball club, agreed to post the up-and-coming ace back in November. Because Sasaki is not yet 25 years old, however, he is considered an international amateur and is subject to teams' respective bonus pool limits.

Sasaki will have 45 days to negotiate with MLB teams once his posting becomes official. If the 23-year-old righty does not sign a deal before then, he will return to the Marines for 2025.

As noted by Passan, Sasaki is expected to wait to join a team until after Jan. 15, which marks the start of a new international amateur signing period. Most teams have already exhausted most of their international free agent budgets for the current cycle, so Sasaki waiting an extra month will raise the ceiling on his first big-league payday.

Sasaki's 45-day negotiating window would extend out to Jan. 22 if he was posted Sunday, fitting into the hurler's supposed plan.

Teams start out with bonus pools ranging from $5.1 million to $7.5 million, although they can trade for an additional 60% on top of their allotted amount. Sasaki will be worth every last penny, according to most experts, in the same way Shohei Ohtani was when he inked a $2.3 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels back in December 2017.

Since turning pro in 2019, Sasaki has gone 30-15 with a 2.02 ERA, 0.883 WHIP and 11.4 strikeouts per nine innings. He also went 1-0 with a 3.52 ERA, 1.174 WHIP and 11.7 strikeouts per nine innings in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, winning a Gold Medal with Japan while showing off his 102 mile-per-hour fastball.

The 6-foot-4 righty is already a two-time NPB All-Star, having pitched a perfect game and broken NPB's single-game strikeout record in 2022. While he suffered a torn oblique and dealt with right arm soreness this season, Sasaki still went 10-5 with a 2.35 ERA, 1.036 WHIP and 10.5 strikeouts per nine innings across 18 starts, continuing to break 100 miles per hour with his fastball.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have long been considered the favorites to sign Sasaki, given that Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are already on their payroll for the next decade. The San Diego Padres have been given a decent shot to land the young righty, though, with Japanese veteran Yu Darvish serving as a potential draw for Sasaki.

Passan also listed the Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, New York Mets and San Francisco Giants as teams that could land Sasaki.

Sasaki may be the top international free agent on the open market this winter, but he isn't the only pitcher coming over from Japan. Tomoyuki Sugano, Shinnosuke Ogasawara and Koyo Aoyagi are all MLB-bound as well.

Yamamoto and Shota Imanaga were the top Japanese pitchers who joined MLB clubs last offseason.

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