Roki Sasaki, the ace Japanese right-hander, is poised to join a Major League Baseball organization before the 2025 season.
The Chiba Lotte Marines, Sasaki's Nippon Professional Baseball team, announced that they will post the 23-year-old. Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, because he's under 25, Sasaki will qualify as an international amateur free agent.
Here's everything to know about who he is and what that means.
Who is Roki Sasaki?
Sasaki has the chance to be perhaps the greatest pitcher ever to come from NPB (the highest level of baseball in Japan) and pitch for a Major League Baseball team. In four seasons with Chiba Lotte, Sasaki has compiled a 2.02 ERA, 11.4 K/9 and 2.0 BB/9 rate while allowing just 6.0 hits per nine. He made a big splash on the international stage by striking out 11 over 7 2/3 innings in the 2023 World Baseball Classic on a Japan staff that included Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
What's his scouting report?
The 6-foot-2 Sasaki is a future frontline starter with the potential to have three plus power pitches. He can run his fastball up to 102 mph, a four-seamer that averaged almost 99 mph in 2023, an average that did dip to 96.8 mph in 2024. He complements the heater with an absolutely filthy splitter (88.2 mph avg in 2024) that generated a whiff rate north of 57 percent this past season. He kills spin with it, and it falls off the table. His slider (83.6 mph avg in ‘24) also misses a lot of bats, with a 40.7 percent whiff rate last year. He has an ideal projectable lean and athletic frame and throws a ton of strikes, though he’s control over command right now. He has No. 1 starter potential, though there are some questions about his velocity dipping on all three of his pitches from 2023 to 2024.
How does the posting system work?
Details of the posting system can be found here. In a nutshell, any player in NPB who wants to become an international free agent before accumulating nine years of experience can ask to be posted for MLB clubs by his Japanese team. Under the current rules, the release fee Chiba Lotte can get would be 20 percent of the total guaranteed value of the contract Sasaki signs. For contracts with a total guaranteed value of $25 million or less, the release fee will be 20 percent of the total guaranteed value of the contract. We know that Sasaki's contract will fall under that $25 million threshold because …
How much can he sign for?
At age 23, Sasaki is subject to international bonus pool money restrictions, as he’s under 25 and has less than six seasons of service time in a foreign league recognized by MLB. So we won’t be seeing a Yamamoto type of deal here (12 years, $325 million). This is similar to when Ohtani came here in 2017, when he received a bonus of $2.3 million from the Angels.
When is he eligible to sign with an MLB team?
All 30 MLB clubs have 45 days to negotiate with a player after he is posted. If no agreement is reached in that timeframe, the player returns to his NPB club for the coming season. He cannot be posted again until the following offseason.
Depending on when he is officially signed, his contract would fall under either the 2024 international signing period, which ends on Dec. 15, or the 2025 period, which opens on Jan. 15. If he's posted before Dec. 2, he could only sign during the 2024 period since the 45-day negotiating window would expire before the '25 signing period begins. If he were to be posted between Dec. 2-15, he could sign during either period, though he'd only have until Dec. 15 to negotiate a deal for the '24 period.
Who are the favorites to land him?
Where Sasaki decides to sign will not be based on who can give him the biggest bonus now. While teams are not permitted to talk about long-term extensions when negotiating with a posted player, there will no doubt be some calculus about future earning potential and opportunities to compete for World Series titles.
The Dodgers check off a lot of the boxes and have to be considered frontrunners to land Sasaki. They have the most bonus pool money left in the 2024 period and, given the long-term contracts they gave to both Ohtani and Yamamoto, it’s not hard for Sasaki and his team to project a long extension after the 2025 season.
Here are the top five teams based on remaining 2024 international bonus pool:
Dodgers: $2,502,500Orioles: $2,147,300Yankees: $1,487,200Giants: $1,247,500Red Sox: $990,000
If he waits until the 2025 signing period to come to terms, all 30 teams’ bonus pools would theoretically reset, but depending on teams’ plans for the upcoming period, the landscape might not be that different. Teams do have the potential to trade for additional bonus pool funds that could help augment any bonus offer.
Here’s the complete list of remaining international bonus pools for the 2024 signing period:
Dodgers: $2,502,500Orioles: $2,147,300Yankees: $1,487,200Giants: $1,247,500Red Sox: $990,000Rockies: $857,800White Sox: $740,000Cardinals: $672,200Tigers: $620,000D-backs: $559,300Royals: $462,300Marlins: $337,500Mets: $314,000Astros: $287,500Cubs: $237,200Angels: $212,200Guardians: $114,300Nationals: $112,500Brewers: $110,500Pirates: $89,800Phillies: $42,200Reds: $35,000Athletics: $33,000Mariners: $19,500Twins: $17,500Blue Jays: $12,200Padres: $2,200Rays: $0Braves: $0Rangers: $0
Here’s the complete list of international bonus pools for the 2025 signing period:
$7,555,500CIN, DET, MIA, MIL, MIN, OAK, SEA, TB
$6,908,600ARI, BAL, CLE, COL, KC, PIT
$6,261,600ATL, BOS, CHC, CWS, LAA, NYM, NYY, PHI, SD, TEX, TOR, WSH
$5,646,200HOU, STL
$5,146,200LAD, SF
Dodgers should trade Tony Gonsolin and Chris Taylor to one of the teams that don’t have the money anyway for the 75% of their bonus pool money. Package it and get it to him
In order for him to get 2025 money I wonder when he will have to wait till? And can they bundle 2024 money into 2025?
NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines To Post Roki Sasaki For MLB Clubs
November 10th, 2024 at 11:57am CST • By Anthony Franco
November 10: The previously unspecified arm injury that caused Sasaki to miss time in 2024 was reportedly “a bout with shoulder fatigue,” according to The Athletic’s Will Sammon. The young right-hander’s recent injury history is just about the only thing that could give potential suitors pause this offseason, but such a relatively minor ailment is unlikely to do much damage to his market.
November 9: Roki Sasaki is coming to MLB next season. His NPB team, the Chiba Lotte Marines, announced overnight (on X) that they intend to make their ace available via the posting system. They did not reveal a specific date when they’ll open the posting window. Sasaki will be represented by Wasserman, tweets Francys Romero.
The announcement opens one of the top storylines of the offseason. Sasaki, who turned 23 last week, is the best pitcher in Japan. He’s one of the most talented pitchers on the planet. It’s the second consecutive offseason in which MLB teams will compete for arguably NPB’s best pitcher. Unlike the Yoshinobu Yamamoto bidding, Sasaki’s earning power is capped at a few million dollars.
MLB classifies players who sign out of a foreign league before they turn 25 as amateurs. Those players can only sign a minor league contract and are subject to a hard-capped bonus limit. Whichever team signs Sasaki is allowed to add him to the MLB roster by Opening Day — he isn’t going to start the season in Triple-A even though his first contract will be a minor league deal — but he won’t be able to sign for huge money.
After he signs, Sasaki will be subject to the same six-year control window that applies to any player called up from the farm system. He’ll play the next three seasons on roughly league minimum salaries before going through arbitration three times. Sasaki would not return to the open market until the 2030-31 offseason. He would be eligible to sign an extension during his team control window, but MLB has the ability to block a contract that it deems a circumvention of the bonus pool limits. There’s no set criteria for what might cause MLB to intervene, but it’s safe to say that Sasaki won’t be signing a massive extension within a few weeks of agreeing to a modest signing bonus.
Yamamoto waited until his 25th birthday to avoid the bonus limit. That freed him to sign with the Dodgers for $325MM, the largest guarantee for a pitcher in history. Sasaki didn’t want to follow that path. He instead prioritized making the move to MLB as quickly as possible, though that required the cooperation of the Marines.
NPB players are not eligible for international free agency until they’ve accrued nine years of service time. Sasaki has pitched at Japan’s highest level for four years. He unsuccessfully pushed for the Marines to post him for MLB teams last offseason. He gets his wish this time around. There’s been speculation that Sasaki’s contract might’ve contained some kind of clause to force the team’s hand.
Whether out of contractual obligation or simply to honor the player’s wishes, the Marines will lose their ace for essentially nothing. The posting agreement between MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball ties the NPB team’s compensation to the value of the free agent contract. An MLB team signing a posted player pays a fee to the Japanese team on top of what goes to the player. The fee is a fixed amount calculated as 20% of a deal’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM, and 15% of further spending.
Yamamoto’s deal came with a windfall for his former team, the Orix Buffaloes. The Dodgers paid the Buffaloes $50.625MM to release him from his contract. The Marines will get a fraction of that. If Sasaki signs for $10MM — and there’s a decent chance his bonus will land below that — the team would receive a $2MM posting fee.
The Marines’ loss will be an MLB team’s gain. Evaluators project Sasaki as a top-of-the-rotation starter. He can push into the triple digits with his fastball and has a potentially lethal splitter. His fastball lost a bit of life this past season, though the pitch still sits in the upper 90s. Marquee’s Lance Brozdowski reports (YouTube link) that Sasaki averaged 97.1 MPH this year after sitting at 99 MPH in ’23. That’s well above average for an MLB starter despite trending in the wrong direction.
While the fastball velocity is eye-catching, evaluators suggest his low-90s splitter is his best pitch. He deploys a slider as his top breaking ball, and while that’s not as well regarded as the fastball-splitter combination, it’s a potential above-average offering. The Athletic’s Eno Sarris broke down Sasaki’s pitch mix in greater detail this week.
Writing for Baseball America in 2023, Kyle Glaser projected Sasaki as an ace who’d warrant the first overall pick if he were in the domestic amateur draft. Glaser ranked Sasaki as the most talented non-MLB player in the ’23 World Baseball Classic, one spot ahead of Yamamoto. Sasaki struck out 11 hitters over 7 2/3 innings of four-run ball for Japan’s championship team.
The 6’2″ hurler has posted dominant numbers on a rate basis in NPB. He has a career 2.10 earned run average in nearly 400 innings. This year’s 2.35 ERA was the highest of any of his four seasons. In a relative down year, Sasaki punched out nearly 29% of batters faced against a manageable 7.1% walk percentage.
To the extent there’s a knock against Sasaki, it’s his workload. He has yet to reach 130 innings in any season. He was limited to 111 frames this year and missed time midseason due to an unspecified injury in his throwing arm. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that he also suffered a torn oblique. The injury history is a concern when paired with his slight velocity dip, but it’s unlikely to dissuade teams from an all-out recruitment. The upside of getting a potential top-of-the-rotation arm far outweighs the minimal cost.
Passan writes that the Marines have not settled on a date when they’ll open the posting window. Whenever they officially post him, Sasaki has 45 days to decide where to sign. It’s possible that’ll carry well into the 2025 calendar. Major League Baseball’s signing periods for international amateurs run between January 15 and December 15 every year. Teams commit the vast majority of that money on 1/15, finalizing contracts that have been verbally agreed upon well in advance.
Sasaki may prefer to wait until the opening of next year’s signing window. Teams already have verbal agreements with amateur players — most of whom are signing out of Latin America at age 16 — for their 2025 bonus window. Clubs could renege on some of those unofficial agreements to reallocate money for Sasaki. Teams are also allowed to trade for international signing bonus space up to a point. A team can acquire up to 75% of its initial bonus pool allotment. A club that knows it won’t have a chance to land Sasaki may be willing to trade most of its bonus space to a team in pursuit of the Japanese star in exchange for other prospects or MLB help.
In April, Baseball America’s Ben Badler published a list of teams’ bonus allotments for the ’25 signing period. The Reds, Tigers, Marlins, Brewers, Twins, A’s, Mariners and Rays have the largest pools at $7.5555MM each. If one of those teams acquired another 75% via trade and devoted the entire allotment to Sasaki, his maximum signing bonus would be around $13.22MM.
He’ll almost certainly sign for far less. If Sasaki were prioritizing money, he’d have waited until he turned 25 and sought a deal that rivaled or beat Yamamoto’s. As was the case with Shohei Ohtani in 2017, Sasaki is leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table in the short term to get to MLB right away. All 30 teams will be on more or less even footing financially. His free agency will be about teams’ competitive outlooks, pitching development plans and geographic preferences.
There’s already ample speculation about the Dodgers as a landing spot. They’re certainly well positioned from a competitive and geographic perspective. Financial might isn’t a direct consideration for this free agent, though, and any team could fit Sasaki into the budget if he were genuinely open to all offers.