Roki Sasaki may be under contract with an MLB team next season, two years before he and the Lotte Marines are eligible to cash in on the riches that would be theirs if he moved as an international free agent, instead of as an international amateur, as defined by MLB’s collective bargaining agreement with its players union.
I have spoken to people with some knowledge of the situation, and have a good idea where the leak occurred that Sasaki will be posted. But I am not here to tell you that he will or he won’t. Even if the Marines agree to let him go, the final decision would be Sasaki’s, not his agent’s and not the sports marketing company that has a stake in him.
Instead, I want to explain how it might take place.
Here by two different reckonings are the best pitches thrown in Japan in the 2024 season.
The pitches are evaluated based primarily on how each one thrown changed the run expectation from before the pitch was thrown. There is a slight modification to eliminate some of the defensive bias — in that one quarter of the final pitches in a plate appearance are given the average value of the type of ball in play — simplified as balls that stay within the infield or balls that stay in play and get into the outfield.
The end results are also run adjusted, since the value of the runs surrendered vary with each team’s offensive context. Looking at a season as a whole, runs are more precious in Dragons games, nearly half of which are played at Nagoya Dome, than Swallows games, where nearly half are played at Jingu.
