Ranking Roki Sasaki’s 7 Most Likely MLB Landing Spots

7. Boston Red Sox

Since winning the World Series in 2018, the Red Sox have one playoff appearance in six seasons, three last-place finishes in the American League East and an 81-81 record in 2024. 

Change finally appears to be coming. Their top four prospects—outfielder and No. 1 overall prospect Roman Anthony, infielder Minor League Player of the Year Kristian Campbell, shortstop Marcelo Mayer and catcher Kyle Teel—all reached Triple-A in 2024. They won’t all work out, but there’s a wave of potential impact talent coming in 2025. With the Red Sox in the mix for big-ticket free agents this offseason, they could position themselves as playoff contenders next season and beyond.

In the 2025 international class, the Red Sox will be active for prominent prospects, most notably switch-hitting shortstop Dorian Soto from the Dominican Republic, as well as Venezuelan shortstops Harold Rivas and Eliezer Alfonzo in the $700,000 to $1 million range, plus others in the low-to-mid six figures. 

The Red Sox have history with Japanese players, including current outfielder/DH Masataka Yoshida. And on a team that had one starter with an ERA under 4.00 in 2024, Sasaki would stand out in a Red Sox rotation more than he might otherwise on teams like the Dodgers or Padres that have better starting pitchers.

6. Baltimore Orioles

If Sasaki wants to go to a team positioned to be a perennial playoff contender for the next half decade and be somewhere he can make a disproportionately significant impact, the Orioles offer that opportunity. Through scouting and player development, the Orioles have a young, outstanding homegrown core lineup of players still entering their prime. There’s more help on the way from the farm system with catcher Samuel Basallo, third baseman Coby Mayo and outfielder Heston Kjerstad ranking as the team’s top three prospects.

A playoff team the last two seasons, the Orioles were middle-of-the-pack in starting pitching WAR in 2024, per Baseball Reference, and that was with Corbin Burnes, who is now a free agent. The Orioles could bolster their starting pitching through free agency. They have plenty of trade chips available to upgrade their pitching that way, too. The best option for the Orioles, though, would be to sign Sasaki. It’s a move that wouldn’t stop them from making other free agent signings or trades to help their rotation, either. 

The Orioles have $6,908,600 in international bonus pool money, so they’re starting with an extra $647,000 in their pool than most of the clubs on this list and have the ability to trade for up to 60% more pool space. That might ultimately be a negligible difference, but it does mean the ceiling of what they could offer Sasaki is $1,035,200 higher than any of the teams we have ranked above them and $2,819,840 more than the Dodgers. 

In Latin America for 2025, the Orioles look to be spreading around their money and should still have space available after January 15. They don’t have any players who will be signing for a top 30 overall bonus in the 2025 class. Their top target, Dominican shortstop Jose Peña, turns 17 in August, so he would play nearly the entire Dominican Summer League season as a 16-year-old. Had he been born a few weeks later, he wouldn’t be eligible to sign until 2026.

With a 2025 payroll that’s currently in line to be in the bottom third of the league, minimal long-term contract obligations and a majority ownership group led by David Rubenstein that just took full control of the club in August, the Orioles could easily give Sasaki a lucrative extension at some point after he signs. The Collective Bargaining Agreement considers “promising, representing, or committing to sign a player to another Minor League contract or a Major League contract in the future” to be circumvention of CBA, but there’s nothing stopping the Orioles (or any other team) from carefully presenting the obvious, publicly available facts of their situation.

5. New York Yankees

The Yankees have right around $1.5 million left in their bonus pool for 2024. They could make a run at Sasaki now, though it seems more likely they would use that pool space on Dominican shortstop Stiven Marinez, a sweet-swinging, lefthanded hitter to whom they have long been connected before the signing period closes on Dec. 15. If they’re able to sign Sasaki in 2024, they could potentially land him and Marinez by just having Marinez wait another month to sign on Jan. 15 if needed.

There’s more money available for Sasaki overall if he waits for 2025. With a $6,261,600 pool, the Yankees are connected to two big names for 2025 from the Dominican Republic in shortstop Manny Cedeño and center fielder Ruben Castillo. The call to sign Sasaki for all of these teams is going to come at the GM/president/owner level, but if the Yankees do sign him in 2025, they are one of the teams with the relationships built to be able to make adjustments to their 2025 class. 

The Yankees are coming off a World Series appearance, seven playoff runs in the last eight seasons and are a large-market team that has history with Japanese players. They could check a lot of boxes for Sasaki if he wants to pitch in New York.

4. New York Mets

If the Mets don’t sign Sasaki, they will sign Dominican shortstop Elian Peña for a bonus that’s expected to be around $5 million, which should make him the highest-paid player in Latin America for 2025. Peña is 5-foot-11, 170 pounds with a compact, explosive lefthanded swing and one of the best combinations of hitting ability and power among 2025 players. His athleticism has improved over the past couple years, though he’s still likely to move off shortstop and head to third or possibly second base. His offensive upside is the big draw.

With a $6,261,600 bonus pool, it’s hard to see the Mets being able to fit in both Peña and Sasaki, even if they trade for more pool space. We’re saying this for every team, but the decision to pursue Sasaki isn’t coming from anyone in Latin America; it’s going to the owner and the president or GM. In this case, the Mets hired president David Stearns in October 2023, well after all of the big deals for 2025 players happened. They also changed international directors at the end of the 2024 season. When teams change international directors or presidents, it’s not uncommon for them to back out of commitments with players made under the previous regime who they’re not as high on, but that isn’t the case with Peña, who is one of the most talented players for 2025.

Still, Stearns doesn’t have deep ties here. He went to Japan this year to watch Sasaki. If he and owner Steve Cohen want to go after Sasaki, do we think an amateur shortstop from Latin America is going to stand in their way? Yeah, me neither. 

The Mets have plenty of motivation to go after Sasaki and points to sell him on the organization. They’re a playoff team in a big market with the wealthiest owner in baseball who is willing to invest heavily on and off the field. He could join a staff with Japanese righthander Kodai Senga that has had recent pitching development success stories in 2024 with veterans Sean Manaea and Luis Severino and a leader in Stearns coming from an organization in Milwaukee that had a top-notch reputation for developing pitching. 

3. Texas Rangers

The Rangers are typically one of the most aggressive teams in Latin America. So while they have a handful of players lined up for 2025, it sticks out that they appear to have a significant amount of uncommitted space still available in their $6,261,600 pool for 2025, with no player projected to sign for a top 30 overall bonus in the class. Like other teams, they might have to trade for more pool space to maximize their offer for Sasaki, but they might not necessarily have to throw away commitments to other players to get him. 

The Rangers have history with Japanese players going back to when they signed Yu Darvish, and they have done significant homework on Sasaki (though at this price, signing him is a no-brainer). In terms of how they’re positioned, the Rangers have a lot lined up for them, but they are the only team on this list that had a losing record in 2024. Still, this is a team that just won the World Series in 2023. They will get back Jacob deGrom and add a surging Kumar Rocker to their rotation. In the outfield, they can point to another year of growth from 23-year-old Wyatt Langford and better health from 22-year-old Evan Carter. Putting Sasaki in their rotation would go a long way to getting the Rangers back to the playoffs in 2025.

2. San Diego Padres

The Padres have played at the top of the international market the last two years. In 2023, it was $5.6 million for catcher Ethan Salas, who is now their No. 2 prospect. This year, they paid $4.2 million for shortstop Leodalis De Vries, who played in Low-A Lake Elsinore as a 17-year-old and is now San Diego’s top prospect.

For 2025? The Padres don’t have a top-of-the-class bonus player lined up. Venezuelan shortstop Deivid Coronil and Dominican shortstop Johan De La Cruz are prominent names to whom they’re attached, but they’re not linked to anyone projected for a top 30 bonus, and they seem to have a substantial portion of uncommitted money in their $6,261,600 bonus pool. Padres president A.J. Preller didn’t just suddenly decide that the team is just going to take its foot off the gas pedal for a year in Latin America. The Padres are preparing for Sasaki.

Like the Rangers, the Padres could sign Sasaki and trade for more bonus pool space, and it wouldn’t have a major impact on the rest of their 2025 international class, at least relative to other clubs. 

From Sasaki’s perspective, he would get to play on the West Coast for a 2024 playoff team in a metro area that’s top 10 in the country in Japanese population. He could join a pitching staff that ranked third in WAR last year in an already well-stocked rotation that includes righthanders Dylan Cease, Michael King and Darvish.

There are a lot of signs that would point to the Padres being the favorites to sign Sasaki—if it weren’t for another team in their division. 

1. Los Angeles Dodgers

We have been saying since the beginning of the year that if Sasaki were to come to MLB after the 2024 season, the Dodgers are the favorites. That hasn’t changed. 

But it’s worth laying out the history here, as well as the reasons the Dodgers are in this position.

The Dodgers have the flexibility to fit Sasaki into their bonus pool whether it’s for the current 2024 signing period that ends on Dec. 15 or the 2025 period that starts on Jan. 15. They have a little more than $2.5 million left for 2024—more than any team in baseball—and could still trade for more pool space.

That doesn’t seem like a coincidence, though it’s not like the Dodgers have completely avoided signing players this year. After all, this year they signed Dominican shortstop Emil Morales for $1,897,500 out of their $5,925,000 bonus pool when the signing period started on Jan. 15, 2024. Morales went on to hit .342/.478/.691 with 14 homers in 46 games en route to winning MVP in the Dominican Summer League. Otherwise, they didn’t sign any players above $300,000 from Latin America when the signing period immediately opened. 

That wasn’t always the intention. They were planning to sign Dominican center fielder Paulino Santana—one of the top prospects in the class—for a bonus that would have come in just under $1 million, but instead the Rangers came in and signed Santana for $1.4 million. So, by early 2024, they knew they would have that pool space to use and still have a big chunk of unspent space. 

Now, in the event Sasaki waits until 2025 to sign, Los Angeles has prepared by not being as aggressive as it usually is at the top of the class. The Dodgers have a few prominent names lined up for 2025, but nobody for a top 30 bonus. That is unusual, though not unique for the Dodgers, whose highest bonus in 2022 was the $757,000 they paid Dominican outfielder Samuel Muñoz. That was the same year the Dodgers signed outfielder Josue De Paula, who is now a Top 100 prospect, and infielder Jeral Perez, who was later traded to the White Sox.

So whether it’s for 2024 or 2025, the Dodgers are well-situated for Sasaki. 

The negatives for the Dodgers?

They are tied with the Giants for the smallest bonus pool at $5,146,200. For a team that exceeds the competitive balance tax, signing a free agent who turned down a qualifying offer results in a loss of $1 million from the club’s international bonus pool, which is what happened when the Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani. 

With 12 teams that have a $6,261,600 pool, six that have $6,908,600 and eight that have $7,555,500, that puts the Dodgers at a $1,115,400 disadvantage relative to most teams on this list, $1,762,400 behind the next six clubs and $2,409,300 behind the top eight teams.

Teams are allowed to trade for up to 60% of their pool allotment. If a team in each pool bracket trades for that additional 60%, the deficit grows even larger for the Dodgers. Here are how the numbers might look:

Starting Pool → Pool + 60%

• $7,555,500 Pool (8 teams) → $12,088,800
• $6,908,600 Pool (6 teams) → $11,053,760
• $6,261,600 Pool (12 teams) → $10,018,560
• $5,646,200 Pool (2 teams) → $9,033,920
• $5,146,200 Pool (Dodgers) → $8,233,920

The Dodgers’ maximum offer in that scenario would be $1,784,640 behind teams like the Padres, Rangers and Mets. It would be $2,819,840 behind the six teams in the next tier and $3,854,880 behind the eight teams at the top: the Athletics, Brewers, Mariners, Marlins, Tigers, Twins, Rays and Reds.

On paper, the Dodgers are working from behind. But in reality, where is that bonus pool money going to come from in a trade? For a team in the top bracket, getting to the maximum would require trading for $4,533,300 in pool space. The 12 clubs in the group with the Rangers, Red Sox and Yankees would need to trade for $3,756,960. 

All 30 clubs have already committed a big chunk, if not all, of their bonus pool space to players throughout Latin America who are going to sign on Jan. 15. There isn’t a single team that’s going to have $4.5 million in its pool to trade. It’s probably the same for the $3.76 million clubs.

So, for one of those clubs to get a full 160% pool amount, it likely will require trades with multiple teams. The club will have to get it done within the 45-day window after Sasaki is posted, so there’s a time constraint, too. And for the teams that do have uncommitted pool space left, many of them are going to be competing to try to sign Sasaki themselves. If you do find a willing trade partner, you will probably have to give up legitimate prospects to get it done. Other teams will know why you’re trading for that pool space and will use that leverage to get better prospects than how the market typically prices bonus pool space. Obviously, it’s worth it if it means you’re getting Sasaki, but it’ll be tricky.

That’s not to say it can’t be done. It’s just not quite so simple to get that extra bonus pool space or to get Sasaki to agree to a deal if it’s based on the contingency of multiple trades needing to be executed with a tight deadline. 

The second issue is, we don’t know how much the difference in signing bonus amounts will matter to Sasaki. Players typically sign with whoever offers them the most money. But Sasaki is a player who, had he stayed in Japan for two more years, could have been in line for a contract in excess of $200 million (being conservative) and would have had a case to eclipse the 12-year, $325 million contract that Dodgers righthander Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed a year ago. Is the difference of a couple million dollars going to determine where he signs?

Where the Dodgers can make a strong case that it’s in Sasaki’s best financial interests to sign with them is off the field. For a young star player coming over from Japan, they can sell him on the marketing upside of being in Los Angeles. His endorsement money should easily surpass his major-league-minimum salary. So, there’s an incentive for Sasaki and anyone getting a percentage of his endorsement deals to sign where he can maximize his marketing opportunities. 

All of that is why the Dodgers are still the favorites. They can sell Sasaki on being able to stay on the West Coast and pitch for a team that’s in the city with the highest Japanese population in the continental United States. They can entice him to join an organization that will consistently give him the chance to play in the postseason, has strong pitching development and features a built-in infrastructure for assisting players from Japan. And they can also make a pitch as a team that has intimated it could go to a six-man rotation in 2025, which would allow Sasaki to stay on a schedule he’s accustomed to already in Japan.

That doesn’t mean Sasaki is a lock for the Dodgers. But there sure is a lot that lines up in their favor.