When it comes to the upcoming 2024-25 class of free agents in Major League Baseball, New York Yankees slugger Juan Soto will tower over all, assuming he doesn't ink an extension before he hits the market. The No. 2 free agent, in the event he makes the leap to MLB, might be Japanese right-hander Roki Sasaki.
That "in the event" qualifier on Sasaki is entirely necessary, as there's much uncertainty surrounding his near-term future and by extension his prospects of reaching MLB anytime soon. As such, a brief exploration of Sasaki's case as it stands now is in order. Here's what you need to know about all that.
Sasaki is young and very, very good
Sasaki is just 23 years of age, and he's in fourth season pitching for the Chiba Lotte Marines of NPB, Japan's top professional circuit. Across those three-plus seasons, he's pitched to a sparkling 2.01 ERA with 486 strikeouts and 80 unintentional walks with 16 home runs allowed in 380 2/3 career innings. That's dominance at the run-prevention, command-and-control, and bat-missing levels – all from, again for emphasis, a 23-year-old. Oh, and he also threw a 19-strikeout perfect game in NPB as a 20-year-old.
On the scouting front, here's what our R.J. Anderson wrote about Sasaki in December of last year:
Sasaki has two massive offerings, an upper-90s rising fastball and a devastating splitter/forkball, and a shockingly good feel for throwing strikes based on his age and his stuff. He's struck out 34% of the batters he's faced as a professional, all the while walking just 5% of them. That 29% margin, for reference, would've ranked second in the majors in 2023, behind only Atlanta Braves flamethrower Spencer Strider. Sasaki does need to improve his durability. He was limited to 91 innings last year by an oblique injury, and to date he's cleared the century mark just once. Otherwise, Sasaki can rightly claim to already be one of the planet's most talented pitchers.
All of that makes for a highly intriguing profile, to say the least. Given the success enjoyed by so many of Japan's pitchers who have come to MLB, there shouldn't be any generalized concerns about such a transition.
As for Sasaki this season, he hasn't quite enjoyed the same level of success, but he's still been excellent. In 77 innings for Chiba Lotte in 2024, he's put up a 2.45 ERA with 91 strikeouts and 24 unintentional walks. He also dealt with some arm problems earlier this year. To the extent there's any troubling decline found in those numbers, however, it's not going to affect his market for reasons soon to be explained.
He probably wants to jump to MLB, but it's not certain when that will happen
In late 2023, Sasaki reportedly asked the Marines to post him (the posting system is the structural means for an NPB player – or one coming over from Korea's KBO – to make his services available to MLB clubs via free agency). His continued presence in NPB, of course, means Chiba Lotte did not honor his request, which reflects the club's strong financial incentives to delay Sasaki's entry into MLB.
The problem from Chiba Lotte's perspective – and from Sasaki's perspective to some extent – is that Sasaki's age and relative lack of NPB service time mean that he'd be subject to MLB's bonus limits on international free agents. As Ben Badler of Baseball America detailed back in April, no MLB club during the signing period that begins in January will be able to spend more than $7.56 million, rounded up, on international free agents this coming offseason. If Sasaki comes stateside this winter, any and all teams will be willing to max out such budgets to sign him even if his 2024 "struggles" persist. Such constraints mean Sasaki's bonus wouldn't even approach a rumor of a hint of a glimpse of his true market value. It also means that Chiba Lotte's posting fee – or the money they get for making Sasaki available – would be far less than what it would be in later years. That's because of how the posting fees, or the international team's cut of the contract, are calculated:
- Contract worth less than $25 million: 20% of contract value
- Contract worth $25 million to $50 million: $5 million plus 17.5% of amount over $25 million
- Contract worth more than $50 million: $9.275 million plus 15% of amount over $50 million
NPB players coming to MLB are subject to those international-spending limits noted above until they turn 25 years of age or reach six years of NPB service time. Sasaki is two years away from such freedoms, and thus the Marines have strong money-based reasons for retaining him for another two years, his personal preferences notwithstanding. If he comes to MLB this coming winter, then Chiba Lotte will get just 20% of, at most, $7.56 million. If he comes over after those tethers are off, Chiba Lotte will get 15% of what could be the largest contract ever given to a pitcher.
The Shohei Ohtani situation doesn't appear to be a perfect comparison
You'll recall that Ohtani was subject to bonus limits when he signed with the Los Angeles Angels at age 23. Those limits and the structure of MLB's international-free agent system were a bit different then, but it still achieved the desired effect of completely crushing a player's market value (Ohtani signed for $2.3 million and made the MLB minimum salary until he qualified for arbitration). Ohtani, though, enjoyed leverage that Sasaki seems not to have. That's because Ohtani's NPB contract with the Nippon Ham Fighters included a clause that allowed him to opt for free agency at any time. Initially, it was reported elsewhere that Sasaki's pact included such a clause, but the events – or non-events – of this past winter strongly suggest that isn't the case.
Sasaki's relationship with Chiba Lotte may have suffered because of all this
It certainly seems that Sasaki wanted to come to MLB but his NPB team declined to oblige. Not surprisingly, this may have led to hard feelings between player and club. As Jeff Passan of ESPN writes:
"Sasaki's relationship with the Marines was damaged accordingly, and he wants to leave again. The Marines plan to decide whether to put Sasaki in the posting system after the season."
To repeat, the Marines by all appearances are not contractually obligated to allow Sasaki to leave ahead of the winter of 2026, when they'd be entitled to a drastically larger posting fee to be paid out by the MLB team that signs him. However, internal pressure could be building based on Sasaki's reported strong desires and disaffection with the team. All of that means our final thing to know is in truth a thing not to know …
We don't know when Sasaki will be free to sign with an MLB team
Whether Chiba Lotte's financial incentives win out ahead of the coming winter or whether Sasaki's entreaties, tacit or otherwise, carry the day is not something anyone on the outside knows at this point. What is known is that he'll be a hotly pursued free agent whether it costs, oh, $350-400 million to sign him in 2026 (as was the case with Yoshinobu Yamamoto this past offseason, another Dodgers-Yankees-Mets scrum would seem likely) or whether he inks for a relative penance in a matter of months. This free-agency subplot may not be prominent on your radar at the moment, but it certainly should be in light of Sasaki's youth and brilliance on the mound.
