In a media landscape chasing clicks, Roki Sasaki has become news when he isn’t. Websites can’t help themselves, and spin every comment about Sasaki by anyone in baseball or anyone who used to be in baseball.
Last week, this meant an article with a splashy headline “former great takes Sasaki to task.” Another article proclaimed that the “Marines might trade Sasaki.” Although the headlines would make one think these were two different approaches to the Sasaki saga, they were virtually the same: that there is something wrong with a quality pitcher who hasn’t proven his ability to manage a professional workload.
Sasaki is currently not on the Marines active major league roster, having been dropped for the second time, soon after his first start following a two-week spell. His manager has said he is expected back soon, but that has only fueled the fires of the Sasaki stove league.
The first story made a mountain out of a comment from former Yakult Swallows ace Hiromu Matsuoka in which he essentially called Sasaki “a slacker,” but then walked back and explained that Sasaki must accelerate his learning progress in order to make the most of that high-velocity but fairly straight fastball, by setting it up better.
The Sasaki fastball is good, because it’s really fast, and because he has a really good splitter. The combination is tremendous. He also has a slider he can throw to right-handed batters that serves more or less the same purpose, especially when thrown in the zone for strikes. If he is just trying to blow hitters away with the fastball, he’s going to get hit.
The article which warned us of a potential trade was more of the same, although it focused more on two things, Sasaki’s inability to stay in the rotation and his desire to play in MLB when his team doesn’t want to post him.
Both articles implied that Sasaki is not being sufficiently challenged, and that’s why, other than some minor improvements in his command, he hasn’t moved forward much since 2022, when he followed his perfect game in April with eight perfect innings the following week before getting the hook.
The idea that a pitcher who hasn’t thrown enough innings to qualify for an ERA title wants to be posted so he can play in MLB and who is still 22 is an affront to many because it is unprecedented. In my experience, people in Japan love to label such things “impossibilities.”
The same article then, as an afterthought almost, chose to validate its headline that promised the potential of a trade. But that was when we learned that the writer was indeed talking out of his ass.
He proposed that since the Marines don’t want to post Sasaki, that they might trade him and get an all-star caliber player and some other auxiliary talent in the bargain. The rationale for this was the blockbuster late January trade between Nippon Ham and Orix that sent one of NPB’s best players, outfielder Yoshio Itoi to the Buffaloes.
The reason for the trade that was leaked at the time was that Itoi wanted to play in MLB, and Nippon Ham refused to post him. This was fairly ludicrous on the surface since one of the appeals of playing for the Fighters is the team’s willingness to let any player try his hand in MLB.
I had no reason to doubt it until former Fighters chief executive Toshimasa Shimada revealed that the trade was made because Ito wouldn’t accept the Fighters’ salary offer and had nothing to do with playing in MLB. Which made perfect sense to me because I asked Itoi about playing abroad a year after the trade and he looked at me like I was nuts.
