Will Dodgers sign Roki Sasaki? Agent details posting process for star Japanese pitcher
DALLAS — Like the rest of Major League Baseball, the Dodgers have closely monitored Japanese star pitcher Roki Sasaki over the last couple of years, anxiously waiting for the hard-throwing phenom to come to MLB.
And now that the 23-year-old officially has been posted for major league teams to sign this offseason, they’re about to find out whether they actually possess what Sasaki is looking for in his next club.
On the second day of MLB’s annual winter meetings on Tuesday, Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe of Wasserman Media Group, began to detail such factors during a media scrum that turned into an informal news conference at the Hilton Anatole, speaking at length to reporters craving any information about the talented right-hander and potential future ace.
“My first answer is, I’m not entirely sure yet,” Wolfe said when asked what Sasaki is looking for in a team. “I’ve known Roki for a little over two years now. And as I’ve gotten to know him, it’s been a little bit difficult to really ascertain what his decision-making process would be for choosing a team, because his focus has been predominantly on whether or not he’s going to be able to post.”
With Juan Soto heading to the Mets, the Dodgers are expected to face tougher competition from the Red Sox and Yankees to re-sign Teoscar Hernández.
The fact Sasaki is coming to MLB has been major news in its own right.
Because he is not yet 25, he will be restricted to a minor-league contract with a modest signing bonus, similar to when Shohei Ohtani joined the Angels for the 2018 season. It was such an uncommon move that, as rumors about Sasaki’s interest in leaving Japan for MLB early circulated over the last couple of years, Wolfe said the “media in Japan has been very tough on him” because “that’s considered in Japan to be very disrespectful and sort of swimming upstream.”
Yet last month, Sasaki’s Japanese team, the Chiba Lotte Marines, finally announced they would post him this winter — setting the stage for what will be one of the most intriguing subplots to follow this offseason.
“He’s someone that is obviously a major priority for us,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “We’re going to do whatever we can, and know that there are a lot of other teams that are going to do the exact same thing.”
The Dodgers, San Diego Padres and New York Yankees are believed to be among the teams most confident in their chances of landing Sasaki, who as a rookie would be under team control for six years.
“His dream is to come here to the major leagues,” Wolfe said. “[But] I think that he hasn’t really wrapped his head around the individual teams and the individual cities. He just doesn’t really know much about them.”
One pressing question is whether Sasaki wants to play with fellow Japanese big leaguers or forge his own path with a team without a history of star players from the country.
Wolfe said Sasaki “could be” attracted to a team with veteran Japanese players but wouldn’t “necessarily need it to succeed.”
If Sasaki does want to play with other Japanese players, the Dodgers should be well positioned. Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto were teammates of Sasaki on Japan’s victorious World Baseball Classic team in 2023. Yamamoto also is represented by Wolfe.
“The success that the Samari Japan team had in winning the World Baseball Classic, and how well that team came together, I think has changed that mindset a little bit,” Friedman said, referring to a long-held industry belief that Japanese players don’t prefer playing on the same MLB teams.
“But like everything, it’s an individual choice,” Friedman added. “So for some people, I think it’s a real positive. And for other people, it might not be. For us, it’s about trying to understand that. And putting forth our best foot and selling the city, the market, the opportunity, the growth and development and all the things we feel like we have to offer, so as I’m sure other teams will do the same.”
The Padres have their own such draw in Yu Darvish, another WBC teammate who reportedly has a close relationship with Sasaki. The New York Mets have Kodai Senga. Both of them are Wolfe clients too.
“He has paid attention to what his WBC teammates have done,” Wolfe said of Sasaki. “And just watching what other Japanese players in the major leagues are doing and how they are doing.”
Sasaki also has “paid attention to how teams have done, as far as overall success, both this year and years past,” Wolfe said, another potentially positive sign given the Dodgers’ World Series title and recent dominance of the National League West.
On the other hand, Wolfe said Sasaki has not mentioned having any preference to play on the West Coast, as other Japanese players have in the past. Furthermore, while Sasaki isn’t opposed to playing in a big media market, smaller and mid-market teams could offer “a soft landing coming from Japan,” Wolfe said, “given what he’s been through and not having an enjoyable experience with the media.”
Wolfe said he plans to meet with Sasaki in the coming days to begin discussing the player’s preferences and to review early proposals teams already have begun to submit (Wolfe sent a memo to clubs over the weekend soliciting presentations).
From there, Wolfe and Sasaki will meet with teams at a central location. Sasaki also could make visits to finalists in January after he returns from Japan for the holidays.
It’s been one year since the Dodgers agreed to terms with Shohei Ohtani on a 10-year, $700-million deal, and the impact has been bigger than imagined.
One factor Wolfe downplayed was the differences in bonus pools each team has to try to sign Sasaki. Though the Dodgers had the most remaining money to spend on their 2024 international class, Sasaki’s decision to wait until the 2025 period opens next month threatened to leave the team at a disadvantage.
While other teams have as much as $7.5 million in their 2025 pool, the Dodgers are stuck with an MLB-low $5.146 million thanks to luxury tax penalties and their signing of Ohtani last year (since he had rejected a qualifying offer from the Angels).
However, Wolfe noted such differences would be “so negligible” that he wouldn’t advise Sasaki to “make a decision based on that.”
Instead, Sasaki will enter his restricted free agency seemingly open to all sorts of possibilities.
And after years of waiting on the Japanese star, the Dodgers are about to get their chance to pitch themselves as the best one.
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