Japanese star pitcher Roki Sasaki to be posted to MLB teams this offseason
A Monster is coming to Major League Baseball, and the Yankees and Mets — and truly all 28 other teams — will be interested.
Roki Sasaki, the “Monster of the Reiwa Era,” will get his wish to pitch in the majors next season.
The Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball announced overnight that they intend to make the star starting pitcher available through the posting system that will make Sasaki the kind of bargain even tiny markets can fit into a budget.
The right-hander throws 100 mph, is renowned for a devastating splitter and turned 23 last week.
He is so determined to pitch in the majors that he will arrive before his dream contract arrives.
If Sasaki waited two years, he would be treated as a free agent and could seek the kind of 12-year, $325 million mega-deal that Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed with the Dodgers last December.
Sasaki was not willing to wait and will come to the majors subject to international bonus pool restrictions.
Instead of the Yamamoto path, Sasaki will follow the one taken by Shohei Ohtani, who came to MLB at 23 and signed with the Angels for $2.3 million.
Sasaki had requested to be posted last offseason and was denied, so he returned for a fourth NPB season in which he pitched to a 2.35 ERA in 111 innings.
“Since joining the team, the team has continued to listen to my thoughts about my future challenge in the MLB, and I am very grateful to the team for now officially allowing me to post,” Sasaki said, through an internet translation, in a Marines release. “There were many things that did not go well during my five years with the Marines, but I was always supported by my teammates, staff, front office, and fans, and was able to come this far by concentrating only on baseball. I will do my best to work my way up from my minor contract to become the best player in the world, so that I will have no regrets in this one and only baseball career, and so that I can live up to the expectations of everyone who has supported me this time.”
Whenever the Marines officially post Sasaki, he will have 45 days to talk with clubs and decide where he wants to sign.
The betting favorite has to be the Dodgers, who are the World Series champions and have Ohtani and Yamamoto as recruiters.
Mets president David Stearns visited Japan in September to get a look at Sasaki.
The Yankees, who are hoping to win the Juan Soto sweepstakes, could spend hundreds of millions on one free agent and still have space for a player who would merely require emptying their remaining international signing bonus pool.
But unlike the Soto derby — in which every team theoretically should be interested, but plenty will be scared off by the money — the entirety of Major League Baseball will try to make its pitch toward a star pitcher.
