Getty Dodgers brass has been scouting Japanese ace Roki Sasaki.
He is not a household name here in the U.S., but there is a feeling that it won’t be too long before folks stateside are well aware of just who Roki Sasaki is. Even at age 22, he has been so dazzling in the glimpses we’ve had of him that he seems a surefire star once he leaves his native Japan and is signed by an American team. That team is sure to be the Dodgers.
At least, we assume it will be the Dodgers. They have taken a strong hold of the Japanese market this year by signing superstar Shohei Ohtani from the Angels and winning the Yoshinobu Yamamoto sweepstakes with their 10-year, $325 million offer this winter. It only feels natural that the Dodgers will also land Sasaki, a 6-foot-4 pitcher who is consistently clocked at 100-plus-mph with his overpowering fastball.
In fact, according to multiple reports out of Japan, the Dodgers are one of eight teams that has had a presence in Japan to watch Sasaki’s starts this year. If he does wind up being posted for Major League Baseball clubs in the offseason, put L.A. at the front of the line.
Roki Sasaki’s Fastball Has Been Clocked at 102.5 MPH
The Dodgers certainly should be there. Sasaki has rare talent. He is equipped with one-of-a-kind stuff, able to dominate with just two pitches, the already legendary fastball, plus a bottom-out split-finger pitch that is near impossible to hit.
Sasaki was 7-4 with a 1.78 ERA in 2023, and a strikeout rate of 13.4 per 9 innings. He struck out seven in 5.0 innings and allowed one run in his 2024 debut.
Sports Info Solutions summed up the heater: “Sasaki’s fastball is one of two unicorn-type pitches for him. The average velocity is hard to match, as his four-seamer would have put him second among qualified starters in MLB last season behind only Bobby Miller who averaged 99.1 mph on his four-seamer last season. Sasaki’s fastball has also touched 102.5 mph.”
In April 2022, Sasaki had one of the great professional pitching performances in history, when he not only threw a perfect game but struck out 19 in doing so.
Soon after that, Baseball America conceded that he might well be the best prospect in baseball. “Sasaki only has 16 NPB starts, so his track record of pro success is quite brief,” the site noted. “But many Japanese aces over the years have demonstrated that exceptional stuff in Japan translates quite well in a trip to the States, and Sasaki’s stuff is as good as pretty much any Japanese pitcher who made the jump to the U.S.
“There is a pretty good case that Sasaki may soon be the best prospect in baseball, even if he likely won’t be eligible to wear that crown for a number of years.”
Dodgers’ Japanese Contingent Could Hurt Ace Pursuit
That will the other interesting thing to watch. Sasaki has made no secret of his desire to land in the U.S. sooner rather than later, but under the current rules between the Japanese league and MLB, he can’t do so until he is 25. But he could do an end-around on those rules.
If Sasaki is posted, he would have to do so an amateur and would have to enter MLB on a minor-league contract, with a cap on his bonus. That means he would be a cheap entry into the league for three years, at which point he would be eligible for a significant raise.
That was the path Ohtani took into American baseball in 2017, when he was 23. He got a signing bonus of $2.3 million with the Angels, and earned a total of $1.6 million in salary for his first three seasons combined. Sasaki would be a similar bargain.
Given the $1 billion in spending on Ohtani and Yamamoto, the Dodgers would welcome a bargain import. But there’s another factor—Sasaki very much wants to show he is the best pitcher in all of baseball.
He might not be interested to playing in the shadows of Ohtani and Yamamoto, and could be much more open to challenging them with another team.
Still, he is worth watching. The Dodgers, obviously, think so.