Roki Sasaki's Agent Reveals Huge Factor for Padres Target When Picking Next Team

Maren Angus-Coombs | Jan 2, 2025

Dec 10, 2024; Dallas, TX, USA; Agent Joel Wolfe, agent for Roki Sasaki, speaks with the media at Hilton Anatole. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-Imagn Images / Tim Heitman-Imagn Images

Roki Sasaki's agent, Joel Wolfe of Wasserman Group, revealed this week that 20 MLB teams have shown interest in the young Japanese right-hander.

Sasaki, who is currently back in Japan, will choose one of those teams sometime in mid-January. He's in the midst of the second phase of his highly publicized recruitment process.

Narrowing his list will come down to several factors, but not the typical ones like market size, living dynamics, or winning tradition.

"He doesn't seem to look at it in the typical way that other players do," Wolfe said. "He has a more long-term, global view of things. I believe Roki is also very interested in the pitching development and how a team is going to help him get better, both in the near future and over the course of his career. He didn't seem overly concerned about whether a team had Japanese players on their team or not, which, in the past, when I represented Japanese players, that was sometimes an issue. That was never a topic of discussion."

Sasaki's decision to jump to Major League Baseball doesn't have anything to do with how much money he could possibly make. He just wants to be the best pitcher — and whichever team he chooses for his first MLB contract will help him achieve that.

“Roki is by no means a finished product. He knows it and the teams know it. He is incredibly talented. We all know that,” Wolfe said Monday, offering a limited update on Sasaki’s signing process. “But he is a guy that wants to be great. He’s not coming here to be rich or to get a huge contract. He wants to be great. He wants to be one of the greatest ever. I see that now and he has articulated it.

“To be that he knows he has to challenge himself. … I’m not speaking for Roki. I’m speaking my own opinion that in order to take it to another level he (realized he) had to come here and play against the best players every day and tap into all the resources that major league teams have to help him become one of the best pitchers not just to come out of NPB but in Major League Baseball. That’s what he wants. That’s why he came.”

Sasaki went 30-15 with a 2.02 ERA in 69 games over four seasons in Japan, striking out 524 and walking 91 in 414.2 innings.

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