SI:AM | The Latest on Japanese Pitching Phenom Roki Sasaki

The 23-year-old will be MLB’s biggest prize in 2025.

MLB teams have started to make their pitch for Sasaki, hoping to woo the 23-year-old star. / Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I really hope the College Football Playoff quarterfinals are more competitive than the first round was. 

In today’s SI:AM: 

⚪ Penn State’s offensive makeover
🔴 Georgia’s new QB
🏆 2024 Sports Media Awards

We know when he’ll sign, but not where

One thing baseball fans will have to look forward to in the new year is the signing of much-hyped Japanese pitching prospect Roki Sasaki. 

The winter meetings earlier this month marked the unofficial start of the Sasaki sweepstakes, but he won’t be able to sign until MLB’s international signing period begins on Jan. 15. He’ll also have to sign by Jan. 23 at the latest, because that’s when the 45-day posting window expires. Between now and then, teams are lining up to make their pitch to one of the most enticing free agents in recent memory. 

Sasaki, 23, has excelled in four professional seasons in Japan and made the surprising decision last month to come to North America years earlier than expected. Because he requested to be posted this offseason rather than after he turned 25, Sasaki’s signing will be subject to MLB’s restrictions on international “amateur” players, meaning he’s leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table by making the jump to MLB now. 

The contract restrictions make the race to sign Sasaki fascinating. Teams will only be able to offer him a signing bonus restricted by the size of their international bonus pool. Those pools range from $5.1 million to $7.5 million, although teams can increase their pools by up to 60% by trading for other teams’ pool money. So if teams can’t set themselves apart financially, how will Sasaki decide where to sign? 

Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, spoke with reporters on Monday to give an update on his client’s free agency and provided some helpful context on the sorts of factors he is considering. 

“We’ve had numerous conversations about team location, market size, team success, things like that,” Wolfe said. “He doesn’t seem to look at it in the typical way that other players do. He has the more long-term, global view of things. I believe Roki is also very interested in 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.”

Wolfe had previously said that Sasaki may be more inclined to consider teams in smaller markets because of his bad experiences with the media in Japan. But he certainly isn’t ruling out teams in big cities. Sasaki has reportedly already had meetings with the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres. That represents a small portion of the 20 teams that Wolfe said had expressed interest in Sasaki. All meetings took place in Los Angeles at the offices of Wolfe’s agency, Wasserman, and Sasaki instructed teams not to bring any players to the meetings. 

It remains unclear whether Sasaki will grant meetings with more teams or if he will begin paring down the list of contenders from those seven. Wolfe did say that Sasaki is likely to visit one or two teams before he reaches a final decision. 

Whoever signs Sasaki will be getting an enticing pitching prospect brimming with potential but with a fair number of question marks. The stats speak for themselves. Sasaki had a 2.02 ERA in his four seasons in Japan and struck out 11.4 batters per nine innings. He’s capable of being as dominant as any pitcher in the world, and at just 23, teams are licking their lips at the prospect of him improving even further. But there are also legitimate concerns about his durability. He’s never made more than 20 starts or thrown more than 130 innings in a season. This season, he threw only 111 innings over 18 starts due to arm discomfort and also experienced a dip in his fastball velocity. 

“Roki is by no means a finished product,” Wolfe said Monday. “He knows it, and the teams know it. He’s incredibly talented; we all know that. But he is a guy that wants to be great. He’s not coming here just to be rich or get a huge contract. He wants to be great. He wants to be one of the greatest ever. I see that now, and he’s articulated it. And to be that, he knows he has to challenge himself.”

Despite the concerns, Sasaki is a prized free agent who will come at a bargain and has the ability to dramatically improve a team’s pitching staff for years to come. In two weeks, we’ll know who that team is. 

Warren and Penn State will face off against Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl. / Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

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