Prior to the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball officially posting right-hander Roki Sasaki for major league clubs last month, Major League Baseball conducted an investigation before authorizing Sasaki’s posting. Jack Harris of The Los Angeles Times reported this afternoon that MLB’s investigation was in order to “ensure the protocol agreement had been followed” and involved interviews with multiple parties. A report from Fabian Ardaya, Dennis Lin, Patrick Mooney, Ken Rosenthal, and Will Sammon of The Athletic added more details this evening, noting that the primary focus of the league’s probe was not Sasaki himself but rather the Marines. Both reports emphasize that the league found nothing that substantiated rumors of an illegal arrangement taking place.
That the league’s investigation focused on the Marines may seem somewhat surprising, but The Athletic’s report notes that the current posting system limits the payout for the Marines to just 25% of Sasaki’s total bonus. That’s a weak financial incentive for a club parting ways with its star player and represents not only a step back from the large posting fees players like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Seiya Suzuki have garnered for their clubs in recent years but also the $20MM posting fee the Nippon Ham Fighters were able to charge in exchange for Shohei Ohtani’s services when he signed with the Angels as an international amateur under the previous posting system back in December 2017. That relative lack of financial compensation for Sasaki’s services raised concerns among league officials for the potential for an under-the-table payment.
While MLB’s investigation found no wrongdoing by any party, speculation around the game of the possibility of an handshake agreement between Sasaki and the Dodgers grew significant enough to draw a strong denial from agent Joel Wolfe of Wasserman, who represents the right-handed phenom. As described in The Athletic’s report, clubs around the game felt uncertain about Sasaki’s goals throughout his posting process as teams like the Mariners and Red Sox failed to land a meeting with the 23-year-old while large market teams like the Cubs, Yankees, and Mets did in spite of suggestions that he may prefer to avoid the spotlight.
Regardless of that confusion, it became clear earlier this week that Sasaki had narrowed things down to three finalists: the Dodgers, Padres, and Blue Jays, each of whom then visited with Sasaki in their respective cities and began to prepare their offers. According to The Athletic’s report, San Diego told Sasaki’s camp that they would be willing to trade to maximize their bonus pool and offer Sasaki the entirety of those funds while the Dodgers lined up a trade with the Phillies to add additional bonus pool money in the event that they landed Sasaki. The Blue Jays were especially aggressive in their pursuit of Sasaki, however.
While all three clubs were clearly willing to add significant bonus pool dollars in order to land Sasaki, Toronto acquired $2MM in international bonus pool space from the Guardians by taking on the majority of the money owed to center fielder Myles Straw over the next two years despite not actually having a deal in place with the right-hander. The impetus behind that trade utlimately did not work out for Toronto as Sasaki wound up choosing Los Angeles. Despit that, The Athletic’s report indicates that the Blue Jays believe Straw could be a worthwhile addition in his own right and that the money they took on to land him won’t be prohibitive as they continue to look for ways to upgrade their roster. Notably, center fielder Daulton Varsho is not expected to be ready for Opening Day and the addition of Straw could give the club some depth at the position while Varsho recovers.
Recently, it was revealed that Major League Baseball conducted an investigation prior to Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki’s posting. Sasaki, a highly touted prospect, was posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines earlier this year.
According to reports, MLB conducted interviews with Sasaki’s coaches, teammates, and other individuals familiar with him to gather more information about his character and background. This investigation was done to ensure that Sasaki would be a good fit for MLB and to address any potential concerns before he signed with a team.
While the details of the investigation have not been made public, it is clear that MLB takes the process of evaluating international prospects seriously. This thorough approach is meant to protect both the players and the teams that sign them, ensuring that everyone involved is well-informed before making a decision.
Sasaki is expected to be a top pick in the upcoming MLB draft, and his posting has generated a lot of excitement among fans and teams alike. With this investigation, MLB has taken a proactive step to ensure that Sasaki’s transition to the big leagues is as smooth as possible.
Tags:
MLB investigation, Roki Sasaki, posting, Japanese pitcher, MLB news, baseball news, player investigation, MLB draft prospect, sports news
After announcing his intention to come to MLB at the start of the 2024-25 offseason, the 23-year-old Japanese free agent immediately became the most coveted pitcher available this winter thanks to his combination of talent and age, and the parameters of his contract.
With the 2025 international free agent signing period opening Jan. 15 and Sasaki’s posting window closing on Jan. 23, we could find out where Sasaki is headed as soon as Wednesday.
Because Sasaki decided to come to the majors before his 25th birthday, he is limited to a minor league deal with a signing bonus coming from a team’s international bonus pool (capped at just over $7.5 million). That makes the emerging ace a rare free agent star every team can afford to sign.
As we wait for Sasaki’s destination to come into focus, we asked our MLB experts what makes him so good, which major league pitchers he reminds us of, and which teams seem most likely to land him.
Monday update: Sasaki plans to sign with either the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres or Toronto Blue Jays at some point over the next week or so, sources told ESPN, with a cadre of big-name teams informed in recent days they are no longer in consideration.
What makes Sasaki such a coveted free agent?
Bradford Doolittle: He’s young, accomplished and with measurable tools that might make him baseball’s top prospect right now. But he’s not a prospect in the “maybe he’ll be ‘X’ if he reaches his ceiling” but one that’s already been successful in a high-level league and can slide into a big league rotation. A limited workload threshold, for now, is the only thing that’s really holding back Sasaki’s 2025 projection. With his full collection of team control seasons intact, there is no risk to signing him. And as good as he is now, he has room to grow in terms of his arsenal and how he fills out physically. You just don’t get a combination of factors all lining up like this, not the least of which Sasaki was so anxious to make the jump that he was willing to make max earnings a secondary factor.
Buster Olney: As we’ve seen with Yoshinobu Yamamoto and with Juan Soto — as we’ve witnessed all the way back to Alex Rodriguez — excellence at a young age is everything. Sasaki is expected to be a high-ceiling talent already at 23, and the team that lands him will have years of control while paying him relative pennies.
Kiley McDaniel: In describing his client’s upcoming potential nine-figure deal to me this winter, an agent underlined why he was confident that would happen, even if he had a down year, by saying: “age is a hack.” Rosters are getting younger, thus teams have more money to spend, but don’t want to offer long-term deals to older players, so they are (generally) seeking short-term free agent deals or trades for players with a year or two of control. That means long-term deals are generally acceptable to a large swath of teams only when they can land a standout young star still in his peak years. (like the Red Sox chasing Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Juan Soto, extending Rafael Devers, but not offering huge money to any older players). Sasaki could be under team control for his entire peak of a bona fide ace, at a price every team can afford: a true unicorn of an opportunity for all 30 teams.
David Schoenfield: He is entering his age-23 season and it’s not a stretch to say he has the potential to be the best starter in baseball. In four years in Japan, he has a 2.02 ERA, averaging 11.4 strikeouts per nine. He has hit 102 mph and is 6-foot-3 and athletic. You can argue that he’s right up there on the Stephen Strasburg/Paul Skenes scale as a pitching prospect, except he has already dominated as a professional.
Which current or former MLB pitcher does he remind you of on the mound?
Schoenfield: With his power fastball/splitter combo, I think of two former MLB greats: Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling. There are certainly some similarities as well to Shohei Ohtani, although Ohtani slowly ramped down his splitter usage and didn’t use it much in 2022-23, going more often to his sweeper. In Japan in 2024, Sasaki induced a 57% whiff rate on his splitter, which would have ranked second in MLB behind Reds (now Yankees) reliever Fernando Cruz.
Doolittle: I don’t know that there is any one guy. The splitter kind of reminds me of the one Logan Gilbert throws, one with a spin rate so low it’s kind of freaky to watch in slow motion. The easy, heavy, hard stuff he offers kind of reminds me of Kevin Brown, only with a different fastball. The thing that’s most exciting about Sasaki is that it’s hard to call him the next so-and-so. He’s his own thing, and novelty is a great and too-rare thing in sports these days.
McDaniel: There isn’t a perfect comp, and Sasaki is still changing as a pitcher, so I’ll point out some players with qualities that are similar. Hunter Greene had a similar combination of arm speed and hype at the same age, along with some questions on his fastball shape and breaking ball quality. Obviously, Sasaki’s standout splitter has a number of comps to former NPB pitchers but only a handful of U.S.-born players, such as Clemens and Schilling. The total package (power fastball, slider, and splitter-ish offspeed pitch) is similar to Paul Skenes’, though Sasaki’s command and fourth and fifth pitch are areas he’ll need to address to have a chance to truly stand up to Skenes’ MLB debut.
Buster Olney: He reminds me of Yu Darvish, with his build and his rangy athleticism. He looks like he’ll have an ability to make adjustments, as needed. Darvish is known for being able to mimic the deliveries of other pitchers, and watching Sasaki move, it would not surprise me if he had the same gift.
Are there any concerns about how his game will translate from Japan to MLB?
McDaniel: Sasaki’s fastball shape and velocity regressed last season, his slider velocity also tailed off even more, he likely needs to add a fourth and maybe fifth pitch, and his execution within the strike zone could be a bit better. These are all simple enough on their own to be addressed in the first half of 2025 as long as Sasaki chooses a strong pitching development club, as I suspect he will. Some mechanical adjustments and mental cues could do a lot of the heavy lifting as these things can all be related. I would expect to see glimpses of Sasaki’s potential in 2025 while we wait until 2026 for the first dominating string of five or six starts in a row.
Olney: We really need our colleague Eduardo Perez to jump in here, because he’d be the one to tell us if Sasaki has any blatant tells such as pitch-tipping. That’s what Yamamoto experienced in his first months with the Dodgers. But Sasaki could have such excellent stuff that it doesn’t matter. His splitter seems to be so good that it won’t be hit even if the batter knows it’s coming.
Doolittle: Well, the different ball means we don’t know exactly how the measurements on his pitches will change, but that’s not a major concern. He looked great in the World Baseball Classic which offers a nice preview of that adjustment. It’s really durability. He has never thrown a lot of innings, his best pitch is a splitter and his velo was down last season. These things would be much more worrisome if he was getting a Yamamoto-like contract, but he’s not. I’ve seen his splitter carry an 80-grade and when you match that with a triple-digit fastball that moves and a track record of plus command, health is the only thing there is to worry about.
Schoenfield: The same as every starter: Health and durability. He has topped out at 20 starts and 129 innings in Japan, back in 2022. His fastball velocity was down a bit in 2024 as he missed time with a torn oblique and shoulder fatigue. He’ll also have to adjust to facing more power hitters than he faced in Japan.
Are the Dodgers the team to beat as his decision approaches?
Doolittle: They always are.
McDaniel: They are the most likely landing spot and have been seen that way for a while, but don’t underrate how little we truly know about Sasaki’s process of eliminating and ultimately choosing a club. We have some clues and potential leans, but don’t truly know very much right now.
Olney: Sure, because they seemingly land every player they want, with a bottomless pit of money. The Dodgers will be the team to beat for years on the field, and off.
Schoenfield: I’ll say no. I’m betting on Sasaki wanting to forge his own path and signing with a team that doesn’t already have Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Which other teams do you think have the best chance of landing him?
McDaniel: The Padres, led by their ultra-aggressive GM A.J. Preller, are perceived as the second-most-likely landing spot behind the Dodgers, and San Diego clearly needs Sasaki more: He would change the outlook for the whole franchise. Beyond that, we’re mostly guessing from teams we know he has met with that seem to have a good environment for Sasaki to develop and compete in meaningful games: the Giants, Mariners, Mets, Yankees, Cubs, and Rangers seem to come up the most but I can’t even say that’s a complete list of teams getting a long look.
Doolittle: For me, the Mets stand out. Sasaki and his representation have been pretty opaque when it comes to offering glimpses of his thinking, which has led to a lot of reading between the lines. It’s such a rare thing for a player of this caliber to be able to choose any team he wants with money barely being a part of the equation. So who knows? The Mets offer a good pitching environment, a strong possibility of sustained contention and a budding pitching development program highlighted by the pitching lab they built in Port Saint Lucie. Why be another Dodger?
Olney: It’s pretty evident that Sasaki is not afraid to ignore conventional wisdom, in the same way Ohtani did when he arrived — he passed up many, many tens of millions of dollars by pushing to get to the majors now, rather than just waiting. With that in mind, I think the Padres will be the most intriguing alternative to the Dodgers, because of the weather, Darvish’s presence and the chance to play against the best, in the same division.
Schoenfield: If Sasaki is primarily concerned with his own development as a pitcher, is there a better place than Seattle? Unlike the Dodgers, the Mariners have kept their young starters healthy. They also play in a great pitcher’s park, they play on the West Coast and it’s not like Seattle doesn’t have a chance to win. But we haven’t heard much about the Mariners being in the running.
Roki Sasaki, the highly touted Japanese pitcher, has officially become a free agent and is now free to negotiate with any team. A number of MLB teams are reportedly interested in signing the young phenom, but there is one team that stands out as the frontrunner to land his services.
According to sources close to the situation, the New York Yankees are considered the team to beat in the race to sign Sasaki. The Yankees have a track record of attracting top international talent and have the financial resources to make a competitive offer to the 20-year-old right-hander.
In addition to the Yankees, several other MLB teams are said to be in the mix for Sasaki, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, and Seattle Mariners. However, it appears that the Yankees have the inside track on signing the prized prospect.
When it comes to MLB comps for Sasaki, scouts have compared him to a number of successful Japanese pitchers who have made the transition to the major leagues. Some of the names that have been mentioned include Yu Darvish, Masahiro Tanaka, and Shohei Ohtani.
Sasaki is known for his electric stuff on the mound, featuring a blazing fastball, sharp breaking ball, and a devastating splitter. His combination of power and control has drawn comparisons to some of the best pitchers in the game, both past and present.
As negotiations continue between Sasaki and interested teams, it will be interesting to see where the young pitcher ultimately lands. Stay tuned for more updates on this developing story.
The mystery surrounding Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki’s free agency is starting to become a little more clear after teams have reached out to express their interest in the talents of the young, budding ace. With the international signing period approaching rapidly, we might know the fate of where Sasaki will join sooner rather than later.
Jordan Shusterman is joined by guest host Kiley McDaniel of ESPN as they take a look at the latest news surrounding Sasaki, including which teams have made their pitch, why some teams didn’t seem to bother and why the San Diego Padres appear to need the talents of the pitcher in their rotation more than anyone else.
Also on this episode of the Baseball Bar-B-Cast, Jordan is joined by Boston Red Sox beat writer for MassLive, Chris Cotillo, as they look at the job the Red Sox have done so far this offseason, what their starting rotation will look like come opening day, which prospects to keep an eye on and reminisce about the 2020 season. Later, Jordan and Kiley talk about the recent moves from the Washington Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates, as well as the Chicago Cubs trading for Vidal Bruján and the Tampa Bay Rays hoping to strike gold with their signing of Eloy Jiménez.
(0:54) – Kiley McDaniel joins the show
(5:29) – The Opener: Latest on Roki Sasaki’s decision
(20:30) – Why the Padres need Sasaki
(32:20) – Chris Cotillo joins
(44:43) – Red Sox prospect talk
(50:49) – Boston’s rotation in 2025
(1:01:57) – Around the League: Nationals and Pirates make moves
In this post, we will be discussing the latest updates on Roki Sasaki’s decision and the Red Sox offseason moves. Stay tuned to the Baseball Bar-B-Cast for all the latest updates!
The details surrounding Roki Sasaki‘s early meetings with Major League teams have been minimal, but agent Joel Wolfe made it clear that the Japanese phenom has been determined to approach the process with an open mind.
The efforts to “preserve the integrity of the meeting process,” Wolfe said, have included limiting every meeting to the same amount of time — under two hours — and having teams meet with them at Wasserman’s office in Los Angeles.
Sasaki even requested that no players be present at any initial meetings.
“He wanted to make sure that everything was a fair and level playing field, both for his own decision-making process and for the teams,” said Wolfe, speaking to reporters on a Zoom webinar on Monday night.
Considered one of the most talented young pitchers in the world, Sasaki is highly coveted for both his ability on the mound and his relative affordability. Because he is under 25 years old, Sasaki is an amateur international free agent under the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Whichever team signs him will pay a signing bonus from its international bonus pool and hold six years of club control before Sasaki hits unrestricted free agency.
Sasaki was posted by his Nippon Professional Baseball club, the Chiba Lotte Marines, on Dec. 9, which opened a 45-day window for negotiation. The 23-year-old right-hander can sign anytime from Jan. 15 — when the 2025 international signing period begins — until the window closes on Jan. 23.
Wolfe shed some light on how he and Sasaki have navigated their first round of meetings — and how he expects the negotiations to progress.
Which teams are involved?
Twenty teams sent in presentations when Sasaki was posted, and Wolfe noted that it was clear that some clubs had been working on their materials long before the Marines announced their intention to post Sasaki in early November.
Those presentation materials varied widely, including PowerPoint presentations, short films and books. There were also some video messages from players, one way to circumvent the “no players allowed” rule for meetings.
“It was like the Roki film festival,” Wolfe said.
Sasaki narrowed down the list from there. Wolfe did not name any teams that Sasaki has met with, or even the number of teams still in the running. According to reports, Sasaki has met with six clubs: the Cubs, Dodgers, Giants, Mets, Rangers and Yankees.
What does Sasaki’s timeline look like?
Although Sasaki could arrive at a decision at any point, Wolfe does not think it’s likely his client will sign right when the international signing period begins on Jan. 15.
After meeting with teams in the last couple of weeks, Sasaki went home to Japan to mull things over. When he returns to the U.S., it may be time to begin eliminating teams from consideration.
“The next steps will be something in the neighborhood of possibly meeting with one or two additional teams, or narrowing the field, which I think may be more likely,” Wolfe said, “and whether or not he wants to visit one or two cities as he tries to finalize the decision-making process.”
What are Sasaki’s priorities?
One way that Sasaki decided to evaluate teams was by giving those he met with a “homework assignment.”
“Without giving the actual details of what that assignment was,” Wolfe said, “every team got that very same assignment, and it enabled them to show how they can analyze and communicate information with him, and really showed where he was coming from in analyzing and creating his selection criteria, in looking at different teams.”
Wolfe named pitching development as one area Sasaki was specifically interested in, also noting that they had had conversations about market size, location, team success and whether a team already has Japanese players. While Sasaki is weighing every factor, the ultimate goal is to continue his development into one of the world’s greatest pitchers.
“I think his experience at [the World Baseball Classic],” Wolfe said, “being around [Yu] Darvish, being around [Shohei] Ohtani, and then seeing [Shota] Imanaga come over and dominate at such a level in the first half, I believe he realized … in order to take it to the next level, he had to come here, play against the best players in the world every day and tap into all the resources that Major League teams have to … help him become one of the best pitchers to ever not just come out of NPB, but to be one of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball.
“That’s what he wants, and that’s why he came.”
Roki Sasaki, the highly-touted Japanese pitching prospect, has been making waves in the baseball world with his impressive talent and potential. Recently, his agent had the opportunity to sit down with several MLB teams to discuss the possibility of Sasaki making the jump to Major League Baseball.
During these meetings, Sasaki’s agent discussed his client’s outstanding pitching ability, his work ethic, and his desire to compete at the highest level of the sport. The agent also highlighted Sasaki’s youth and the room for growth and development, making him an even more enticing prospect for MLB teams.
While no official deals or agreements were made during these meetings, the interest in Sasaki from MLB teams is certainly apparent. With his impressive fastball, devastating off-speed pitches, and poise on the mound, Sasaki has the potential to become a star in Major League Baseball.
As talks continue between Sasaki’s agent and MLB teams, baseball fans around the world eagerly await to see where this talented young pitcher will end up. Stay tuned for more updates on Roki Sasaki’s journey to the big leagues.
The Hot Stove has cooled a little bit in recent days, as most of the biggest names available have come off the board and teams regroup ahead of the new year. But there’s still plenty of talent out there, and while former Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes looks for a record payday, the biggest prize might also be the biggest bargain: 23-year-old Japanese ace Roki Sasaki, who offers ace upside for Minor League money.
Sasaki is officially able to negotiate with MLB teams, and given his international amateur free agent status, just about everybody has taken a crack at him over the past couple of weeks. When it comes to scoring an in-person interview, however, only a select few have made the cut so far. Just five teams have been confirmed to have held meetings with Sasaki and his agent, Joel Wolfe, so far, and while some more are certainly to come (e.g., the Dodgers and Padres, still considered the frontrunners for his services), now is as good a time as any to handicap the race as it stands. Which team that’s earned a meeting is best positioned to land the explosive young righty?
For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work onThe Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason.
The most recent of Sasaki’s in-person meetings to be revealed might well be the most shocking one. Sure, the Texas Rangers won the World Series just 24 months ago, and there’s still plenty of talent in this lineup. But the team’s pitching more or less collapsed in 2024, and it’s not like there’s a particularly strong track record of pitcher development in recent years.
Arlington would give Sasaki a little less media spotlight while still offering plenty of endorsement opportunities (and an airport hub for easy access to Japan). But several teams figure to offer better off-field arguments, and the on-field product wouldn’t seem to be all that appealing at the moment. Of course, Sasaki still asked them for a meeting, so there has to have been something that caught his eye.
The Yankees were among the first teams reported to have landed an in-person meeting with Sasaki, and any time Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner can get in the room with a big-time free agent, you can never count them out. But after some negative interactions with media while playing in Japan, it really does seem like Sasaki might not be wild about dealing with the intense, sometimes irrational scrutiny that comes with playing in pinstripes. And after the Juan Soto debacle, you do have to wonder whether Hal has his father George’s ability to close the deal amid stiff competition.
New York offers a competitive roster and plenty of endorsement opportunity, and if the East Coast were a deal-breaker, you’d have to think they wouldn’t have landed a meeting in the first place. Plus, the team can call on former Yankees Hideki Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka to play up its connection to Japanese stars. But while New York has gotten farther with Sasaki than it did with, say, Shohei Ohtani, it still has to be considered a long shot here based on what we know so far about the righty’s priorities.
With Corbin Burnes reportedly well out of the Ricketts’ price range, it sure seems like Sasaki is the only option left for Jed Hoyer to find the Chicago Cubs an impact addition to the rotation. The good news is that the team reportedly managed to score an in-person meeting, and there are plenty of selling points to offer, from a competitive roster (especially after the Kyle Tucker trade) to a national brand to access to an airport hub to a fellow Japanese ace already on board in Shota Imanaga.
Of course, there’s also not-so-good news. While closer than, say, New York, Chicago still isn’t as geographically convenient as potential West Coast destinations like the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, and Chicago media has a tendency to be less than kind to Cubs players who underperform. Overall, there’s plenty of reason to believe that Sasaki would take the Cubs seriously, but not quite enough to vault them to the top of this list.
Maybe this is just the afterglow of the Juan Soto sweepstakes talking, but how can you count out Steve Cohen and David Stearns for anything at this point? Sure, Cohen’s money won’t be as decisive a factor here, but the 2024 season proved that the new Mets leadership is up there with anybody when it comes to pitching development, and current Japanese ace Kodai Senga is always around to help with the recruiting pitch.
The same Yankees caveats apply here; New York media is a different animal, and Queens isn’t as convenient a trip back to Japan as, say, Los Angeles or San Diego or San Francisco. But if Sasaki is really willing to consider coming to the East Coast (or really anywhere east of the Rockies), you’d have to think that the Mets are currently the team with the most compelling pitch when you consider their roster, their organizational stability and the proof of concept that landing Soto represents.
Maybe this comes as a surprise; the Giants haven’t exactly been a prime destination for free agents of late, and they couldn’t even score a meeting with Shohei Ohtani or Yoshinobu Yamamoto last winter. But Buster Posey really does seem to have given San Francisco some much-needed juice, as evidenced by the team finally hitting on a big name with the Willy Adames signing earlier this month. And on paper, there’s a lot to offer here: SFO has as many direct flights to Tokyo as any airport in the contiguous U.S., the roster is a bit better than you think, the spotlight isn’t quite as bright as it is in L.A. or New York and Oracle Park is among the most pitcher-friendly spots in the entire league.
Will all of that be enough to unseat the Dodgers or Padres, both of whom are above San Francisco in the NL West pecking order and enjoy the same geographic advantage? That remains to be seen. But of the teams that we know have earned a meeting with Sasaki, the Giants might be the sweet spot, combining some cause for on-field optimism while checking every off-field box.
Roki Sasaki, a highly touted Japanese pitching prospect, has been meeting with several Major League Baseball teams to discuss potential signings. With his electric fastball and promising secondary pitches, Sasaki has generated interest from teams across the league. While it’s still uncertain where he will ultimately land, here are some of the likeliest destinations for the young phenom based on reports and rumors:
1. Seattle Mariners: The Mariners have a strong history of signing Japanese pitchers, and they have shown a keen interest in Sasaki. With a need for young pitching talent, Seattle could be a perfect fit for the 19-year-old hurler.
2. San Diego Padres: The Padres have been aggressive in pursuing international talent in recent years, and Sasaki would add to their impressive stable of young arms. Pairing him with fellow Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish could make for a formidable rotation in San Diego.
3. Texas Rangers: The Rangers have also expressed interest in Sasaki, and they have the financial flexibility to make a competitive offer. With a need for pitching depth, Texas could be a strong contender for the young right-hander.
4. Toronto Blue Jays: The Blue Jays have a strong presence in Japan and have had success signing Japanese players in the past. With a promising young core and a need for pitching, Toronto could be an attractive destination for Sasaki.
While these are just a few of the teams that have been linked to Roki Sasaki, it’s clear that he will have no shortage of suitors when it comes time to make a decision. Wherever he ends up, one thing is certain – Sasaki has the potential to be a future star in Major League Baseball.
