SAN ANTONIO — Ruki Sasaki is such a tremendous talent that teams should prepare for the possibility that the Japanese pitcher is about to become an international free agent, although club officials still don’t know if that will actually happen this winter. Those complex negotiations between the Chiba Lotte Marines, Nippon Professional Baseball and Major League Baseball could decide the future of the sport’s next potential star.
Amid the uncertainty, Sasaki was a popular name this week at MLB general manager meetings, as agents, executives and reporters worked at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort and Spa. Of course, the early hype has centered around the Los Angeles Dodgers because lately they always seem to get what they want. But Sasaki’s entry into the publishing system at the age of 23 would spark a frenzy.
Here’s what you need to know, based on information from league sources:
Why might Sasaki have to wait?
NPB rules and the labor agreement with MLB do not guarantee that Sasaki will become a free agent this offseason. All NPB players need nine years of service in Japan before qualifying for international free agency. Sasaki only has four, so he needs cooperation from his team to make the jump.
Financial incentives may force the Chiba Lotte Marines to retain Sasaki for the time being. Through the posting system, Japanese teams receive money to release a player, and the fee is calculated based on the signing bonus and various percentages of certain salary caps.
Due to Sasaki’s age, he would only be eligible to sign a minor league contract under MLB’s posting rules. This potential deal will be funded through international bonus funds raised. Current allocations to each club are less than $8 million.
Thus, there is a huge discrepancy in wages between what Sasaki will get now – and, as a byproduct, what Marine Chiba Lotte will get now – versus waiting until he is 25 years old.
Rocky Sasaki scored nine runs over eight scoreless innings in the first game against the Fighters. pic.twitter.com/O5IsZYR5sB
– Jason Coskrey (@JCoskrey) October 12, 2024
Follow the money
If Sasaki is deployed this season, he will be looking for a reward similar to what Shohei Ohtani received when faced with the same limitations. In 2017, Ohtani picked up the Los Angeles Angels after a fierce recruiting battle, signing for $2.3 million, a fraction of his eventual production and the value he generated for the West Coast franchise.
The differences between major and minor league contracts — which are 23 or 25 in these cases — are enormous.
By waiting until after his 25th birthday to deploy last winter, Yoshinobu Yamamoto earned a record $325 million deal with the Dodgers. Publication fees for Yamamoto’s former team, the Orix Buffaloes, cost the Dodgers an additional $50.6 million.
Executives said they did not expect Sasaki to disrupt the promotional market the way Yamamoto did a year ago due to bonus pool restrictions.
Teams that will be in the mix
In theory, every club should participate because the investment would be a relatively small amount of money. The difference between one club’s international bonus funds and another club’s total is marginal. It won’t be an escalating bidding war so much as a recruiting battle.
However, the prevailing sentiment in the industry is that the Dodgers loom as the favorite. However, Sasaki’s exact preferences are not yet known. The New York Mets and Chicago Cubs are among the teams that have scouted him heavily. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said Wednesday that he traveled to Japan in September to watch Sasaki play as a way to express a level of interest and respect. To be sure, Stearns is not the only powerful CEO to make this gesture.
The New York Yankees and San Diego Padres are also among the groups that have extensively scouted and signed players from Asia in recent years. Teams will supposedly get a chance to make their presentations to Sasaki, in an attempt to sell his vision.
NPB sets December 15 as the last date for publication of the course. Then there is a 45-day negotiation period to sign from the day the player is posted. This deadline and window are the same whether the player signs a major league deal or a minor league contract.
Scouting report
With a 100-mph fastball and a devastating splitter, Sasaki emerges as a potential top-of-the-rotation player. “He reminds me of Jacob deGrom,” one industry source said. “He will develop into No. 1.”
“If he had been someone in the amateur draft, it would have been an easy top-five draft pick, maybe even better,” one high-level executive said.
Go deeper
Ruki Sasaki has quality stuff. How does that translate to Major League Baseball?
Sasaki is younger than Yamamoto, without the same polish in his game or track record of scoring innings. Partly due to injuries, Sasaki’s NPB workload so far (less than 400 innings) isn’t even half of what Yamamoto has produced. This experience helped Yamamoto adjust faster to Dodger Stadium, where he beat the Padres in the playoffs and won the World Series game against the Yankees.
Sasaki’s learning curve could be steeper. There is also still plenty of room for growth and the feeling that the challenge of participating on the biggest stage in sport will accelerate this development.
“He’s not the finished product like Yamamoto,” one club official said. “But there aren’t many people in the world who are more talented.”
(Top photo of Rocky Sasaki pitching for Japan in 2023: Eric Espada/Getty Images)
