National Publication Explores Seattle Mariners Hypothetical Pitch For Roki Sasaki
For the second year in a row, the most intriguing free agent pitcher on the open market will be coming over from Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball.
The Chiba Lotte Marines will be posting young phenom pitcher Roki Sasaki and he'll be free to sign with a major league team for the 2025 season.
There's still a lack of clarity on when specifically Sasaki will be posted. Depending on when the Marines make him available and when he signs, he'll either count towards teams' 2024 international signing pool or 2025. Depending on when he's posted, several teams will be taken out of the running for his services based on lack of available international funds.
If he's counted towards the 2025 pool, then the Seattle Mariners will be one of the teams with money available to go after the young Japanese phenom.
The Mariners will be among the top teams in available international signing bonus pool money for the 2025 window with $7.55 million. Sasaki is predicted to earn a contract closer to Shohei Ohtani's original deal with the Los Angeles Angels ($2.3 million bonus) than Yoshinobu Yamamoto's $300 million deal signed last offseason with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Seattle doesn't have a pressing need for starting pitching. Or arguably any need at all. Its rotation last season was among the best in baseball and the club has two capable future starters waiting in the wings in the minor leagues in LHP Brandyn Garcia and RHP Logan Evans. The Mariners also selected switch-pitcher Jurrangelo Cijntje and strong-armed prep prospect Ryan Sloan with their first two picks in the 2024 draft.
But Sasaki's potential makes him an intriguing scenario. The 25 year-old is coming off a three-year stretch where he posted ERAs of 2.02, 1.78 and 2.35 with 437 strikeouts in 53 games started over that stretch. His four-seam fastball peaks at over 100 miles an hour and averages in the upper 90s.
Coming soon to MLB: Rōki Sasaki 🇯🇵 pic.twitter.com/nWEfIQmMNl
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) November 9, 2024
Sasaki's could be one of the best starters in the MLB before all is said and done. And he'll be relatively cheap. That might be too big of an opportunity for the Mariners to pass up.
A recent article from Baseball America laid out what the pitch would be for Seattle to land Sasaki.
Baseball America explored hypothetical pitches from all 30 teams for Sasaki's services. And the Mariners' could be enticing enough to land the young hurler:
The Pitch: No one knows pitching more than we do. Our 2024 rotation showed it, and with you, we’ll be even better in 2025 and beyond. We have a great young star hitter in Julio Rodriguez and one of the best catchers in baseball in Cal Raleigh. And have you seen our farm system? We should be good for years to come. But we’ve never won it all. You can be the pitcher who changes that.
Not mentioned in the pitch is Seattle's history in signing and developing talented Japanese players. Ichiro Suzuki will likely be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2025 and see his number retired by the Mariners. Yusei Kikuchi started his career with the Mariners and reportedly has a lot of teams vying for his services in free agency. And Hisashi Iwakuma played six seasons in Seattle and for a lot of those years was the No. 2 starter behind franchise great Felix Hernandez.
Seattle would also have two intriguing options to explore by adding Sasaki to its rotation. The first scenario the team could explore is using the extra depth to nab an elite bat using one of its current starters as the main piece in a trade.
The second option is the Mariners could opt for a six-man rotation similar to what NPB teams do. That would allow Seattle to minimize the risk to its starters. The rotation was the only one in the majors last season to have four pitchers start 30 or more games. That kind of health is rare and shouldn't be assumed to repeat in 2025.
With the Mariners, Sasaki would also be under less pressure to perform right away. He'd be expected to be a top starter right away with a pitching-starved club, or in a top media market like the Dodgers (who are assumed to be the favorites for his services) or the New York Mets. With Seattle, Sasaki would start his career as one great pitcher in a staff that includes four All-Stars (Luis Castillo, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Andres Munoz). The player development side of things also speaks for itself.
If there would be one drawback to signing Sasaki, it's that it the Mariners would likely be out of the running for Korean Baseball Organization free agent middle infielder Hye-Seong Kim. That would put Seattle back at square one when it comes to solving its persistent struggles at second base.
The pros to signing Sasaki definitely outweigh the cons. The Mariners failed to sign Ohtani when he first came to America and this could be redemption for that.
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