With Juan Soto dominating the free agent landscape this offseason, another highly-coveted player is set to hit the open market soon.
That would be Japanese ace Roki Sasaki, who will be posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines, his Nippon Professional Baseball team, this winter. Every major league club should try to woo the 23-year-old, as his age subjects him to MLB’s international amateur signing bonus pool rules. That means there’s a cap on the contract he can sign.
In other words, there won’t be an all-out, record-setting bidding war for Sasaki the way there was for Yoshinobu Yamamoto last winter. This situation is more similar to the one that saw Shohei Ohtani sign with the Angels for $2.315 million in 2017.
The Yankees lost Yamamoto’s sweepstakes last year, as he signed with the Dodgers. Now they have a chance at a younger — and cheaper — Japanese star.
“He is really gifted and very young,” Aaron Boone said of Sasaki, who has a 2.02 ERA over four NPB seasons, on Monday. “Obviously he’s already done quite a bit in Japan. So we know it’s a unique and special talent, a guy with top of the rotation qualities.
“This is a really, really special talent that’s going to be coming over to Major League Baseball next year.”
With Yamamoto and Ohtani already under the Dodgers’ employment and helping them dominate the Japanese market, rumors and rumblings have pegged Los Angeles as the frontrunners for Sasaki’s services. The Padres, who are also geographically close to Japan, are another favorite for the flame-throwing righty, as Sasaki is close with Yu Darvish.
However, the Yankees have been scouting Sasaki for years — they have a generally strong presence in Japan — and have had previous success with fellow countrymen Hideki Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka. Sasaki, meanwhile, has called Tanaka an idol of his.
“Hopefully we’re in the mix with him,” Boone said, though he hasn’t started to talk to the Yankees about Sasaki after getting his 2025 club option picked up last week.
It’s unclear exactly when Sasaki will be posted, a process that gives him 45 days to sign with an MLB club, but the international signing period runs from Jan. 15 through Dec. 15 every year. If Sasaki were posted in December, he could sign on Jan. 15 when teams have their full international bonus pool allotments.
Players younger than 25 who have not reached six years of service in a foreign major league are subject to MLB’s international amateur signing bonus pool rules. Had Sasaki waited a few years, he would have been in line for a much bigger payday. The Marines would have also made a lot more money, as NPB teams get a posting fee.
In that sense, Sasaki’s early posting is mildly surprising, though whispers of him leaving Japan predated this past season. Boone, citing “some angst” between Sasaki and Chiba Lotte, said he wasn’t caught off guard by the news that the two-time NPB All-Star would become available.
“I had heard something a few weeks ago that it was maybe a 50-50 scenario,” Boone said. “A year ago, I heard this could possibly be in play coming this year. So I can’t say I was surprised, but I guess the realization of it kind of happened quick.”
Boone added that he hasn’t seen Sasaki in person, but he’s seen video of the perfect game author’s triple-digit heater and forkball.
With those clips at the top of his memory on Monday, Boone expects Sasaki to thrive in the majors, no matter who he signs with.
“This is a guy that you can certainly envision coming over here and being an ace and being a dominant starter,” the manager said. “He’s got that kind of skill set. I hear really good things about the makeup.”
