Roki Sasaki is coming, MLB ready or not.
I’ve talked about the “how,” in “Roki Sasaki’s unprecedented situation,” and you can read about the “what” – as in what he brings – in numerous scouting reports on the net. I’m bigger on his slider than most, and not as big on his fastball and split – although that split has been monstrous in the past and I expect it to rebound going forward.
Today, I’m going to tell you the “why” behind Roki Sasaki.
A posting was always in the cards
We could all guess back in 2019 that Roki Sasaki’s posting was inevitable, although the early timing came as a surprise.
Four teams went after Sasaki in the 2019, with the Pacific League’s Lotte Marines getting his rights by lottery. Japan’s hardest throwing high school pitcher had passed on signing with an MLB team because to do so prior to the summer of 2020 would have meant being classified as a pro prior to his final summer of high school ball and missing out on his shot at pitching in the summer nationals at Koshien Stadium.
Prior to the 2019 draft, it is likely Sasaki told would-be suitors he would only sign with teams willing to post him to MLB, because two teams that called him a generational talent after meeting with him, the Yomiuri Giants and SoftBank Hawks, did not nominate him as their top pick. Both of those clubs have long disparaged the posting system, and the Hawks have never used it, ever.
Why so early?
This is the big question.
By going at the age of 23, Sasaki is forgoing MLB free agency by moving when MLB’s agreement with its union classifies him as an amateur, subject to a minor league deal, six years of team control, and unable to cash in on any substantial income until he becomes arbitration eligible.
Players just can’t raise their hands and go. They can only be posted by their teams. Because Sasaki will be treated as an amateur, the Lotte Marines only stand to earn a posting fee equal to one quarter of his signing bonus. If a small market team with a poor record trades for additional bonus-pool money, Sasaki could conceivably get in the area of $10 million, and the Marines $2.5 million.
Again, I’ve written about what likely made Lotte “allow” him to go. When the Marines announced they were ready to move on without their top star, while getting little more than a kick in the teeth, Lotte essentially said “Altruism is behind the posting.” This is an explanation commonly used by teams trading team control for cash, but laughable in this case.
The real reason
I’d like to tell you the real reason Sasaki is forgoing riches just for two more years of MLB experience, but I can only guess. Two reasons have been put forth since news of his potential posting this winter began to surface in the summer of 2023.
In 2023, the principle explanation was that he was being manipulated, by a shadowy cabal made up of Japan’s sports marketing behemoth Dentsu and the Los Angeles Dodgers through some connections between Sasaki’s mother and her associate in the insurance business. One version of that story had Dentsu paying Sasaki $2 million in 2019 to sign up with them.
This story painted Sasaki as an innocent victim of unscrupulous people. Japan likes its sports heroes to be pure and unsullied, and pro baseball here and in America cloaks itself in a coat of virtue that has more in common with the emperor’s new clothes.
Sasaki missed most of the second half of the 2023 season with an oblique strain. In November, one story said Sasaki wanted to be posted a year ago, which added fuel to the speculation when he didn’t sign his 2024 contract until a few days before Feb. 1, Japan’s traditional starting date for spring training.
At that time the Marines said the negotiations took so long because they were all done with Sasaki’s agent, although the team later added that this was no different from every negotiation since Day 1 in 2019. There was some talk about both sides wanting to be on the same page and that details needed to be clarified to everyone’s satisfaction.
The press conference represented a temporary ceasefire, with the Marines pretending they were in control of the situation, and Sasaki pretending he didn’t know what the fuss was about.
But Sasaki did not throw bullpens until later than usual in spring training, and was not game ready on Opening Day. His velocity then dipped, for reasons I’ve discussed elsewhere in a discussion about his manager, Masato Yoshii, Dr. James Andrews, velocity and Tommy John surgeries.
I had thought he was throwing only fewer pitches at maximum effort, but because he was throwing more fastballs at the lower end of his velocity range, he might have been purposely trying to take something off it. But enough digression.
The attacks shift
As the season went on, it became apparent that Sasaki’s ability to bounce back from the strain of his previous starts had not improved significantly, and he spent a fair amount of time on the farm rebuilding his fitness.
As a result of his failure to step it up a notch from 2023, the pundits shifted their attacks from screaming about evil puppet masters poisoning Sasaki’s thinking to the idea that Sasaki himself was the problem: “He wants to go MLB, but is not willing to play hard in Japan” or “He’s mentally weak” or a whiner or a complainer. You name it and he was called it.
This reached its apogee this past week when former Marines general manager Tatsuro Hirooka said the team shouldn’t have waited to dump him: “Hirooka takes aim at Sasaki, Marines.”
So those are the two versions of the first reason that has been given for Sasaki wanting to leave so early: He is a victim of manipulative people who don’t have his best interest at heart, or he is spoiled and selfish.
Although there may be some truth to stories about people trying to manipulate Sasaki and his situation for their own personal gain, I tend to believe another reason why he is so eager to go now.
It’s all about baseball
Sasaki’s stated goal in all this, is “I want to go to MLB because my goal is to be the best baseball player in the world.” It might have been a convenient expression to use, borrowed as it was from another player from his neck of the woods who struck out to find his fortune in MLB as a 23-year-old, Shohei Ohtani.
“My baseball career is precious and I have but one shot at it in my life,” he said in a statement Saturday. “And I don’t want to regret anything when it’s over.”
A big part of Japanese culture is paying attention to obligations, and to many fans, Sasaki has not met his obligations to the Marines and is not repaying them properly for the careful handling he has enjoyed pitching for Lotte. That’s a real thing, and I guarantee you Sasaki feels that pull to want to do more.
If he were not being advised by people outside the team, he might just be lured into staying by succumbing to the team’s pressure. I’m not saying the team is wrong to assert that his staying in Japan until he turned 25 would be a win-win for everyone.
Businesses, however, absolutely love to drone on and on about how they have their employees’ best interests at heart when they most certainly don’t. The Marines definitely care about everything that would help Sasaki be a fitter and better pitcher for them, but that does not mean they care about what is best for him.
Sasaki is in a position to do what is best for himsef, and I want to believe him when he says his goal is to get better rather than to get richer. If money was Sasaki’s goal, there is reason for him to leave now, when he would make more money in Japan than in MLB through 2026 and follow that with a massive American payday.
I’m not convinced that by the time Sasaki is 27 or 28, that going to MLB two years earlier would have made THAT big a difference because he’s a pitcher. In Shohei Ohtani’s case, for a hitter who rarely saw 100 miles-per-hour fastball in Japan, it made sense. For a pitcher, I’m less certain.
But I suppose if Sasaki’s goal is to be one’s absolute best, then those two extra years might actually help him achieve that goal.
As for the money side, I put it to you readers to consider how different Sasaki’s circumstances are from most people, aside from his athletic ability and competitive drive. After all, he’s a young man with an absolute concrete knowledge of how short and precious life is.
On March 11, 2011, when he was 10, an earthquake and tsunami devastated northeastern Japan. Sasaki’s father and two grandparents were killed. He, his younger brother, and his mother had to be evacuated to another town, where he played ball in makeshift surroundings.
Where’s he going
There are people around him who would be as happy to see Sasaki play for a small market team provided it was the place where he could grow the most as a player. He might have made up his mind to play for the Dodgers, but if he has, I’m guessing it’s not because of the money, but because he believes they can help make him the best pitcher he possibly can be.
That’s because it’s hard to square Sasaki going now with a belief that he is only going to L.A. because that’s where the money ostensibly is.
I have no idea what other factors he’s going to take into consideration, and how much influence there will be from hangers on, but I sincerely doubt that at this moment, endorsements and future contracts will outweigh his calculations of how much stronger and better he might be with one team compared to another.
