Right-hander Roki Sasaki has been officially posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, per Jon Morosi of MLB Network (X link) and Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (X link). That opens a 45-day window for Sasaki and his representatives to talk to MLB clubs, meaning he will need to have a deal in place by January 23 or else he will return to the Marines.
Since Sasaki is under 25 years old, having just turned 23, he is considered an amateur under MLB rules. As such, he must be signed as part of the international bonus pool system. The 2024 international signing period ends on December 15 and the 2025 period starts on January 15. All reporting has suggested that Sasaki will wait to sign until the new period starts up and each club gets a fresh pool of spending money, so he seems destined to sign somewhere between January 15 and 23rd, though the talks can now officially begin.
It seems to be a lock that Sasaki will be coming to the majors next year, the only question is who he will play for. Money won’t be the primary factor, as each club will be able to offer a roughly similar signing bonus. As laid out by Ben Badler of Baseball America, each club has a bonus pool in the $5-8MM range. Teams can trade for more pool money but can’t increase their initial allotment by more than 60%.
If money were Sasaki’s motivation, he would have waited another two years to make this move. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was posted after his 25th birthday and was able to secure a $325MM guarantee from the Dodgers, but Sasaki has insisted on making the move now because he presumably just wants to test his mettle at the world’s top level as soon as possible.
He also surely knows that he will eventually be rewarded as long as he keeps pitching well. Shohei Ohtani also came to the majors as an amateur and had to settle for a small bonus with the Angels, but he flourished and eventually got his big paycheck from the Dodgers once he accrued six years of big league service time.
Given those parameters, Sasaki will likely be deciding his new club based on other factors. It has been suggested by some observers that the Dodgers are a favorite, given that the franchise has had success in general but also especially with pitchers. It’s also possible that the presence of Ohtani and Yamamoto might be nice for Sasaki as he makes the move to a new country and new culture. Some have also suggested the Padres as a strong contender since Sasaki reportedly has a strong relationship with Yu Darvish and might prefer to be in a market away from Ohtani and Yamamoto, giving him a greater chance to step into a spotlight and parlay that into sponsorships opportunities while his direct earning power is relatively low. He may have other preferences based on geography or a team’s competitive outlook, though those can only be guessed.
No club can be officially ruled out, however, given the cheap sticker price and Sasaki’s quality as a pitcher. He has allowed only 2.10 earned runs per nine innings over his NPB career, striking out 32.7% of batters faced while only giving out walks 5.7% of the time. There are some slight workload concerns since Sasaki has had some injuries and never thrown 130 innings in a season, but any club would still love to take a chance on him for the small price of a few million dollars.
Whoever ultimately lands Sasaki, it could lead to domino effects that impact other clubs. MLB teams generally commit their bonus pools years in advance via verbal agreements. Players in countries like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela aren’t allowed to sign until they are 16 years old but they often have handshake deals worked out with clubs years in advance. Whichever club agrees to sign Sasaki, even for a bonus of just a few million, might have to renege on a few of those verbal agreements. That would be an awful situation for those players but could lead to them suddenly becoming available for other clubs. That could create further domino effects if some clubs then back out of their own verbal agreements in order to pivot to the newly available players.
At Baseball America, Badler recently took a look at the chaos that could ensue as the Sasaki situation plays out. That will have to wait, as it likely won’t be known for over a month which team Sasaki will choose.
