Washington Nationals Can’t Take Bold Financial Shot at Roki Sasaki
The Washington Nationals are looking for starting pitching. But one name that hasn’t readily been connected to the Nets is Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki.
ESPN reported on Saturday that Sasaki’s Japanese team, the Chibe Lotte Marines, will post him for MLB teams to make their pitch during the winter meetings in Dallas next week.
Sasaki’s posting will be much different than that of pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s because Sakaki is only 23. Due to his age (under 25) and his limited professional experience (less than six years), he’s subject to international signing bonus rules.
If you’re looking for a comparison, think about all of the players MLB teams sign out of the Caribbean each January. Sasaki will get paid out of his team’s international bonus pool.
So whoever signs him won’t be breaking the bank — yet. The international bonus pool rules are clear and almost impossible to circumvent.
Sasaki can choose who he signs with, but teams are limited to their bonus pool, with the exception of trading for 60% of its pool money.
It’s widely believed that Sasaki will choose a west coast team. That’s where Yoshinobu, Shohei Ohtani and Ichiro Suzuki all landed.
But Sasaki is also considered Major League ready right now. He throws a triple-digit fastball and, like Yamamoto, has an array of pitches.
Last year he went 10-5 with a 2.35 ERA, 129 strikeouts and 32 walks in 111 innings. For his four-year career he is 29-15 with a 2.10 ERA and 505 strikeouts against 88 walks in 394.2 innings.
Whoever lands him, he is automatically a candidate for the Opening-Day roster.
The Nationals have an opening. Yes, Sasaki is young and so is the Nationals’ projected starting rotation. But, because Sasaki’s money comes out of one pool and free agency comes out of another, Washington could make a push to get him.
But how? The reality is there is only one way to make a pitch worth considering and it’s to offer Sasaki ALL of the Nationals’ bonus pool money for 2025.
The problem is the Nats can’t do that, either. No team can.
Per MLB, every team’s international bonus money has slots. For example, a team with a $3 million pool might have had a $1.5 million slot, an $800,000 slot, a $400,000 slot and a $300,000 slot.
The Nats have $6.261 million to spend this year. So, if their top slot is 50%, as in the example above, the could pay a little more than $3 million to Sasaki.
Would that be enough to get him to eschew the west coast for D.C? There’s no way to know for sure. But MLB’s international rules keep the Nats from making the one bold move that might give them a fighting chance.
