It's Categorically Insane That Roki Sasaki Is Giving Up Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars To Play MLB In 2025

Yohei Osada. Shutterstock Images.

This is a blog about the top pitching prospect in baseball, Roki Sasaki. 

He's a 23 year-old Japanese superstar and there's a lot of important shit worth discussing. So let's do it provided somebody out there gives a fuck. 

Presenting the important things in numbered format:

1. He's supposed to be at least as good as Shohei Ohtani on the mound. Many thus assume he will be better than Yamamoto, but now we're splitting hairs. Point is he's very fucking good with a high ceiling to become much better.

2. He sits at 99mph and that's not a typo. 99.

3. He's giving up hundreds of millions of dollars to join MLB two seasons earlier than what traditional common sense suggests. I'll explain later in better detail but for now just know that this dude has a childlike love for baseball.

4. Everyone thinks he's signing with the Dodgers, but there's been recent news that provides hope to guys like me that care way too much about this kinda stuff. Specifically: 

I don't recommend it, but you can read the full thing here. It's a real word salad just to say that maybe it's not the Dodgers. 

5. Everybody in the league can sign Roki because everybody is limited in how much they offer him. That's because he's under 25 years old, and any Japanese player under 25 is treated like an international amateur. This is probably the most unique thing about Roki because if he waited two more years, he would be treated like a standard free agent. 

Example A: Shohei Ohtani came to MLB for his age-23 season where he made about $12M total in his first 4 years including his signing bonus. 

Example B: Yamamoto came to MLB last year age-25 season where he signed a 12-year/$325M deal with the Dodgers. 

Ohtani got the amateur treatment because he wasn't at least 25 years old while Yamoto got a bag because he was.

As a result of all of this, it will not be cost-prohibitive for any MLB team to sign him. In fact, he would get more money from a worse team with a tier-1 international budget. 

It's actually terribly confusing, as evidenced by the following explanation from MLB's own website: 

As per the existing rules established in the 2017-21 Collective Bargaining Agreement, clubs are each subject to a spending cap for amateur international free agents. Each club will have at least a $4.75 million bonus pool to spend, with those that have a pick in Competitive Balance Round A receiving $5.25 million and those with a pick in Competitive Balance Round B receiving $5.75 million.

Clubs will be able to acquire up to 75 percent of their initial international bonus pool money in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 signing periods and up to 60 percent of their initial pools in subsequent signing periods. This means that a club with an initial pool of $5.75 million can increase its pool total via trade to approximately $10.1 million during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 signing periods. The 2017-21 CBA also allows international funds to be traded more freely, as teams must now simply trade international money in increments of $250,000, unless they have less than $250,000 remaining in their pool. Under the 2012-16 CBA, teams were assigned four tradeable "slots" with different values designated for each slot. The money was able to be traded only in those increments.

If Roki waited two years, he would not have to deal with this bullshit but instead would get a mammoth contract. But that's not happening. 

6. Roki is coming now, age 23 and with 2 years left on his original Japanese deal. There's a lot of speculation and significantly less known facts, but it's easy to understand that this guy wants to be competing at the top of the world. He's bored. The Japanese league isn't fulfilling his competitive desires and at some point you need a bigger challenge than a 0.89 WHIP over the last 4 years combined. 

yes, 0.89 WHIP

7. When Shohei came over early, people were confused because he was due a lot more money by waiting. But he didn't want to wait because he wanted to play MLB as soon as possible. He didn't care about the money and that broke the brains in American media. We're simply not used to premium talent taking a $200,000,000 pay cut just to play in Anaheim. And even typing that back now renders me utterly bewildered. But then I remember some inside baseball stuff I've learned about Shohei and it makes a lot of sense. 

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8. Joe Maddon told me he wouldn't come off the field. Not during BP or infield instruction or really any time it was ever set up before a game. At any moment, Shohei's out there shagging balls or taking grounders or bullshitting in the outfield throwing knuckle balls. He's like a little kid watching his older brothers play organized games. He's so monumentally bored and simultaneously entertained with the sport. The challenge in managing him is getting him to understand that he's Not Like The Other Kids. He just wants to be on the field with his teammates and if you gave him the option, there'd be a double header every day where he'd play shortstop and lead off and I mean it.

9. This helps understand a little bit more how Shohei is comfortably deferring $68M every single year. It wasn't about money in the first place and it isn't about money now - even though he's already rich as fuck. He really only cares about playing baseball with his friends, which is probably why he's so much better than the 2nd best guy in the world. It all comes from a place of pure love. 

10. All this to say that Roki following the same path could be a direct reflection of Shohei's values. He could be the exact same kind of teammate that loves the game so much. That's easy to understand, which then gives credibility to signing with a smaller-market club that's adept at pitcher development. And then if we accept that, then we start to open the door for someone other than the Los Angeles Dodgers, which is what almost all of us want to see.

But if you love Shohei enough to model your path after his, wouldn't you just go play with him in LA? 

I think so but I'm not Roki Sasaki. I'm not a Japanese baseball superstar.

I can only guess and my hunch is the Dodgers get him and run it down our fucking throats. 

PS - great breakdown from one of my favorite insiders Lance Brozdowski: