It’s not often that a highly-touted pitcher transitions from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball to Major League Baseball at only 23 years old.
Right-hander Roki Sasaki is breaking from the more common and lucrative path — waiting to turn 25, after at least six NPB seasons, in order to enter major-league free agency — to post as an amateur free agent this offseason. In doing so, he's drawn comparisons to Shohei Ohtani for their similar route to MLB.
Ohtani, too, was 23 years old when he fielded pitches from MLB teams across the country, in a range of markets. He landed with the Angels for a $2.3 million bonus. And then every team that he turned down — including the Cubs, who were among the seven finalists with whom Ohtani took meetings — had to watch him develop into a two-time MVP and one of the most notable players in baseball history with the Angels.
Then, of course, he signed a record-setting $700 million contract with the Dodgers in free agency last winter and helped them win the 2024 World Series.
The comparison between Sasaki and Ohtani shouldn’t be taken too far. Ohtani’s two-way skillset makes him one of one, and back in 2017, it forced teams to confront questions of how to maximize his unique talents. But in Sasaki’s own way, he has already proven he could be a difference-maker.
His fastball can hit triple digits, and he has a tantalizing splitter to complement his velocity. He’s still young, with room for improvement, but he has all the potential of a future ace.
The Dodgers are seen as the favorite to sign Sasaki for a myriad of reasons, including the interest they’ve shown dating back to his high school days, their reputation for developing pitching, and their recent success in courting Ohtani and Japanese star pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Sasaki, however, will set his own priorities. And until he goes through the posting process, it won’t be clear exactly how he’ll rank those values. So, there’s room for other teams to win his favor. And the Cubs are among the clubs gearing up to make their pitch.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters at the owners meetings Wednesday that he expected Sasaki to sign in the 2025 international amateur class, echoing industry expectations.
That’s good news for the Cubs, who had a little over $200,000 of their 2024 international bonus pool allotment remaining as of late October, according to the Associated Press. They would have had to trade for international money to put together a respectable offer for Sasaki.
Technically, every team has its entire 2025 allotment — which ranges from about $5.1 million to about $7.5 million — available. But it’s common practice for clubs to strike non-binding agreements with teenage Latin American players well before the signing window officially opens on Jan. 15. So, many of those entering into the Sasaki sweepstakes are charting paths to free up the necessary funds should they come out on top.
By taking this route to MLB, however, Sasaki signaled that money likely won’t be the biggest factor in his free agency. If he had waited, he could have landed a contract comparable to that of Yamamoto, who signed a 12-year, $325 million deal last offseason.
If it’s true that marginal differences in bonuses won’t sway Sasaki, teams will try to sell him on their ability to set him up for the brightest future, both short- and long-term.
In that arena, the Cubs could have a compelling case — even more compelling than they had in 2017.
In recent years, the Cubs have prioritized talent evaluation in Japan and worked to establish Chicago as a destination for MLB-bound Japanese players. They see the Pacific Rim as a place they can leverage resources to try to get a leg up on other teams.
That belief was reflected in some of the club’s recent decisions while restructuring parts of their baseball operations department, a process that was first reported by the Athletic. The Cubs significantly downsized their pro scouting ranks this year, choosing to concentrate their in-person scouting efforts on the lower levels of the minors and take advantage of the data and video available at the major-league and upper levels. At the same time, they continued to emphasize international scouting.
In the last three years, the Cubs have signed two well-touted Japanese free agents, right fielder/designated hitter Seiya Suzuki and starting pitcher Shota Imanaga. It could also help that Padres pitcher Yu Darvish, a veteran example for the newer wave of Japanese-born MLB players, has spoken highly of his time in Chicago.
“We've worked really hard to do a good job in the assimilation process for Japanese players,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said during the GM meetings earlier this month. “Seiya has done a really good job. Quietly, he was Top 20 in OPS in baseball this year. And Shota had a great year. So, I would expect that in the Japanese market, the Cubs and Chicago are really appealing.”
Imanaga’s success in his rookie season could especially strengthen the Cubs’ case for Sasaki. The team combined its scouts’ evaluations, which identified avenues to maximize Imanaga’s talents in the majors, with their pitching infrastructure’s hands-on work, plus lessons learned from Suzuki’s transition from Japan and conversations with Darvish, to support Imanaga through an expectations-shattering 2024.
When the BBWAA announced Rookie of the Year and Cy Young results this week, Imanaga finished fourth and fifth, respectively, in the National League. He became the first Cubs rookie to appear on any Cy Young ballot, dating back to the award's inception in 1956, according to MLB.com.
It’s up to Sasaki to decide what he takes from his Japanese national team teammate’s success with the Cubs. The same goes for the club’s eventual pitch to him. Sasaki has not been posted yet, but when he is, he’ll have 45 days to negotiate with MLB teams and choose his future.
