Roki Sasaki will likely make a big impact for some MLB team, but at a small initial price

Over the weekend, an announcement that Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki will be posted by his current team, the Chiba Lotte Marines to come to the MLB in 2025, put a top pitcher out there that some team will get at a real bargain price.

Because at age 23, Sasaki is too young to qualify to be signed as a “foreign professional” and he instead will be signed, per MLB rules, as an “international amateur” meaning he will be signed as a minor league free agent.

He cannot be given a massive contract per the rules. In fact, while Corbin Burnes may sign for $200 million or more, it's possible that Sasaki could actually get $2 million or less.  

If Sasaki is posted very soon, he could be signed by Dec. 15, the last day for teams to sign international amateurs during this current signing period. If that were the case, the Orioles, per the Associated Press, have the second-highest pool amount remaining right now to sign such players.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have the top remaining international pool amount at $2,502,500 with the Orioles next at $2,147,300 followed by the New York Yankees at $1,487,200 and then San Francisco at $1,247,500.

The next signing period for international amateurs opens on Jan. 15, 2025 and teams will have their full pool amounts starting then and if Sasaki signs after that date, he can get a bit more money, but he can’t get a huge deal like Max Fried or Burnes will get.

When the pools reset for the Jan. 15 signing class, the top pools will have amounts of $7.555 million. The Orioles are in a group of teams that will have $6.908 million to spend. It should be noted that clubs have already reached verbal agreements with players that will be announced on Jan. 15 and several teams may have their 2025 dollars already mostly accounted for.

I guess technically a team could renege on a verbal deal to have more money to spend on Sasaki.

The bottom line is that this player will likely not be picking his next team based on anything to do with salary.

Last year, for Chiba Lotte, Sasaki went 10-5 with a 2.35 ERA over 111 innings with 32 walks, 129 strikeouts, a 1.036 WHIP with a 10.5 K per nine. Since 2021 in Nippon Professional Baseball, he has an ERA of 2.02 over 414 2/3 innings.

There is an assumption that a Los Angeles Dodgers team already with Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the roster and a World Series trophy added last month, will be the favorites to get him.

No one seems to know what Sasaki wants the most from his MLB club. Is a winning team most important, a young team, a team already with one or more Japanese players on the roster, a team that is on the West Coast, all of the above or something else completely different?

How good is Sasaki?

“His ceiling is he’s the best pitcher in the world,” an MLB talent evaluator who has watched him in person several times told Sports Illustrated. “[But] he’s definitely not a finished product. Most people in Japan would agree with that.”

It's going to be interesting to see what happens here. Some team will get what is considered a major talent for a clearance-sale price. 

About last night: The O's Colton Cowser is a finalist for the AL Rookie of the Year award. The Baseball Writers' Association of America ROY award will be handed out next Monday night. Should Cowser win, the O's will get a draft pick out of it just like last year when Gunnar Henderson won. More is here.