The greatest team in baseball is adding an extremely talented, cost-effective and potentially dominant piece to a star-studded pitching rotation.
Rōki Sasaki, the 23-year-old phenom from Japan whose services for the next six seasons could be procured by every Major League Baseball franchise for the equivalent of a rounding error, ended his six-week recruiting period by agreeing to sign with the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday, he announced in a social media post.
And with that agreement, not only did the rich get richer, they also got more efficient, more viable for the future and that much more unbeatable in the 2025 season. It also leaves more than a dozen spurned suitors in his wake, most notably the Toronto Blue Jays and San Diego Padres, apparently the last teams eliminated in this derby.
Sasaki chose to get posted by his former franchise in Japan, Chiba Lotte, before he’d accrued enough service time to become a major league free agent. And in following the path paved by Shohei Ohtani in 2018, Sasaki’s acquisition cost would be limited to teams’ international signing pool – and then have his salary controlled by the club for the following six seasons.
That meant all 30 teams functionally had a shot at Sasaki. And in what’s surely a cruel twist for Sasaki’s suitors – most notably the second runner-up Padres and fellow National League West combatant San Francisco Giants – Sasaki and Ohtani are now teammates, soon to share a rotation.
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Along with Blake Snell – signed to a five-year, $182 million contract in December. And Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who was posted one year ago after seven dominant seasons in Japan, signed a $325 million contract – and was the starting pitcher for four of the Dodgers’ 11 postseason wins.
Let’s not forget right-handers Dustin May and former All-Star Tony Gonsolin, returning from injury. Oh, and Clayton Kershaw, who has a presumably standing offer to return to the club.
Throw in youngsters Bobby Miller and Landon Knack and that’s nine – count ‘em, nine – starters the Dodgers can throw at teams for 162 games and however many playoff matchups necessary. That array of arms will only serve to ease Sasaki’s transition to the major leagues, as he both won’t be needed to make 30-plus starts nor amass 200 innings.
That’s a significant perk for a pitcher who’s never tossed more than 129 ⅓ innings in a season and whose agent, Joel Wolfe, lauded Sasaki’s desire to learn and intimated that a club’s track record and apparatus in developing pitchers would play a significant role in his client’s decision.
And his new club will have a pretty good floor to start on.
Sasaki posted a 2.02 ERA over 69 games for Chiba Lotte, peaking in 2023 with a 1.88 ERA over 15 games and 91 innings, with 135 strikeouts. He backed that up in his final season in Japan, winning 10 games in 18 starts and striking out 129 in 111 innings.
He pitched a perfect game in 2022 and followed that with eight more perfect innings in his next start before his manager pulled him for precautionary reasons.
At 6-foot-4 and with a frame that should pack more than the 200 or so pounds it currently carries, Sasaki has touched 102 mph with his fastball, and it sits comfortably in the upper 90s. Like Yamamoto, his splitter is a wipeout pitch late in counts; it stands to reason Sasaki will, also like Yamamoto, have an adjustment period with regard to pitch mix and usage once he’s attacking major league hitters full time.
Yet for the Dodgers, the risk is virtually nil. After unloading most of their $5 million international signing pool to acquire Sasaki, they’ll pay him salaries at or just above the major league minimum, or less than $800,000, for the next three seasons.
They’ll also control his rights through three years of salary arbitration and, should Sasaki spend no time in the minors, three years of arbitration before he’s eligible for free agency after the 2030 season. That’s a long time to possess such a prized asset.
And that’s just one reason why the game’s most consistently dominant franchise – with two World Series titles, four NL pennants and 12 consecutive playoff berths since 2013 – is beyond equipped to remain in that perch.
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