MLB investigated to ensure no early Sasaki deal in place, pitcher likely to pick team mid-January

AP Baseball Writer

DALLAS (AP) — Major League Baseball investigated to ensure no team had an advance deal in place for Roki Sasaki, and the agent for the Japanese pitcher said picking a club will be “like the draft in reverse.”

On the first day of Sasaki’s 45-day window to sign with an MLB team, agent Joel Wolfe said the 23-year-old right-hander likely will sign shortly after the 2025 international signing pool window opens on Jan. 15 and wouldn’t wait until the Jan. 23 deadline.

“The incentive to sign as early as possible is to get the visa process going so that he would be on time for spring training,” Wolfe said Tuesday during a half-hour news conference at the winter meetings.

Sasaki helped Japan win the 2023 World Baseball Classic and has a fastball clocked at 102.5 mph. The 6-foot-2 pitcher is 29-15 with a 2.10 ERA over four injury-shortened seasons with the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball’s Pacific League.

Because he is under 25, Sasaki is treated by MLB as an international amateur and subject to signing bonus pools for minor league contracts usually allocated to 16-year-old Latin American prospects. The Los Angeles Dodgers kept $2,502,500 open in their 2024 bonus pool, leading other teams to speculate whether an agreement had been reached.

“There was a lot of discussion in the media, in the league, in NPB about Roki’s situation,” Wolfe said. “There were some accusations, allegations, all of them false, made about predetermined deals, things like that. However, MLB rightly wanted to make sure that this was going to be a fair and level playing field for everyone, so they did their due diligence and interviewed numerous parties ahead of time to make sure that that was the case.”

Wolfe said MLB preferred Sasaki’s posting availability extend into the 2025 period, where team amounts will range from $7,555,500 to $4,146,200.

“My advice to him is don’t make a decision based on that because the long-term arc of your career is where you’re going to earn your money,” he said.

Sasaki was 10-5 with a 2.35 ERA in 18 starts this year, limited by shoulder inflammation, and 7-4 with a 1.78 ERA in 15 starts in 2023, when he had an oblique injury. He pitched a perfect game against Orix in April 2022 and Wolfe said the experience of WBC games helped convince Sasaki to head to MLB earlier rather than later.

“Roki is somewhat quiet. He has a dry sense of humor. He’s very witty. He’s not verbose,” Wolfe said. “He doesn’t necessarily love people that are verbose. Sometimes I will be talking to him and talking about some very important things, and at the end I’ll ask him if he has any questions and he’ll say: ‘That was a lot of talking.’”

Wolfe said Sasaki was traveling to the U.S. on Tuesday and teams will be invited to a central location for meetings starting next week,

Sasaki intends to return to Japan before Christmas and stay in Japan for a week or two, and then decide whether he wants to visit MLB cities when he returns.

Some teams already have sent PowerPoint and video presentations.

“I think there’s no better place to do it than in New York with the pinstripes,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We recognize that this is a pitcher that has a chance to be an ace over here.”

Sasaki was 9 when his father and grandparents were killed during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. That experience impacted Sasaki’s decision to sign this winter rather than wait until after the 2026 season, when he would be considered a foreign professional like the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who signed a $325 million, 12-year contract last December.

“If you look at some of the things that have happened in his life, some of the tragedies that have happened in his life, he does not take anything for granted,” Wolfe said. “It is not an absolute lock, as some people in baseball have assumed, that two years from now he’s going to get a Yamamoto contract. Baseball just doesn’t work that way. … He could have Tommy John surgery. He’s had two shoulder injuries. He’s had oblique injuries.”

Wolfe said he hadn’t yet discussed desired destinations with Sasaki and didn’t know whether he had a geographic preference, was inclined to join teams with histories of Japanese players or desired large or small markets. Sasaki’s relationship with reporters in Japan has not been smooth.

“There’s been a lot of negativity in the media directed at him because he has expressed interest at going to play for MLB at such a young age and that’s considered in Japan to be very disrespectful and sort of swimming upstream,” Wolfe said. “A lot of people jumped on board there creating some false rumors about him and his family, and it was very detrimental to his mental state.”

Wolfe assumed Sasaki will “seriously consider” San Diego, where Yu Darvish is on the roster and Hideo Nomo is a special adviser.

“Given what he’s been through and not having an enjoyable experience with the media,” Wolfe said, “it might be beneficial for him to be in a smaller market but I really don’t know how he looks at it yet.”

Wolfe expects Sasaki will not start every fifth day initially given that in Japan most starters have six days between outings.

“I would think that any team would ease him into it,” he said.

Wolfe’s advice to Sasaki is simple.

“At the end of the day, you know it when you see it and when you see it, just tell me,” he said.

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