On the first day of October, two Dodgers executives were on the other side of the world.
Shortly after the end of the regular season, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and vice president of player personnel Galen Carr were in Japan on a scouting trip.
The center of their attention: the phenomenal pitcher Roki Sasaki.
For the past few years, the Dodgers front office has adored Sasaki, enamored of his dazzling repertoire, led by a triple-digit fastball. The only doubt was when the right-hander would arrive on the other side of the Pacific.
Late Friday night, they finally had their answer.
The Chiba Lotte Marines, Sasaki’s Japanese team in the Nippon Professional Baseball league, announced that they will release the 23-year-old star to Major League teams to sign this winter.
“Since he joined the organization, he told us about his dream of playing in the United States,” Naoki Matsumoto, general director of Chiba Lotte, said in Japanese in a statement. “Considering the past five years as a whole, we have decided to give priority to your thoughts. We hope that you will do your best as a representative of Japan. We encourage you.”
In Los Angeles, the Dodgers’ offseason has gotten a lot more interesting.
Although Sasaki does not have the big league credentials of other top free pitchers, he is considered to have enormous potential and, thanks to MLB’s rules on international free agents, will be able to be signed for a fraction of the cost.
If Sasaki had waited two more years to reach the MLB, he would have been free to sign as a normal free agent. Last winter, Yoshinobu Yamamoto landed a record $325 million contract with the Dodgers after coming from Japan. Sasaki could have been in a position to rival him.
But because Sasaki is being released under the age of 25, he will be limited to only a minor league contract with a modest signing bonus; similar to when Shohei Ohtani, then also 23, signed with the Angels before the 2018 season for just $2.3 million.
Also like Ohtani, Sasaki will be under club control with whichever team he signs with for six seasons, like any other rookie.
This makes Sasaki a dream target for the Dodgers; a potentially gifted, young and cost-controlled arm to reinforce – if not drastically improve – their starting rotation.
Over the past few seasons, the Dodgers have devoted considerable effort to evaluating Sasaki’s development. Last winter, the team expected Sasaki to be traded later that season. But, after a long saga with his Japanese team, Sasaki ended up staying one more season.
Last year, Sasaki had one of his most complete seasons, with 10 wins and a 2.35 win average. And one of his best outings came on the day Friedman was there: a nine-inning, one-run, 10-strikeout complete game.
“He pitched well,” was all Friedman wanted to reveal a few days later.
Now that Sasaki’s NPB team will begin the process to send him to the MLB – his maximum singing bonus will reportedly depend on whether he is classified in the 2024 or 2025 international signing class, but it wouldn’t be much higher than the Ohtani – is expected to suddenly become one of the Dodgers’ top targets this offseason.
The team already has two Japanese stars, Ohtani and Yamamoto, who broke the idea that Japanese major league players preferred not to play for the same teams by signing both with the Dodgers last winter. And the Dodgers would give Sasaki a chance to instantly compete for a World Series title, entering 2025 as defending champions and favorites to repeat – especially if they could shore up their starting pitching.
“Obviously, we can never have enough pitching, as we’ve learned,” general manager Brandon Gomes said Wednesday, after the Dodgers won the title despite having one of the most injury-plagued pitching staffs in the league. “So pitching will be a priority.”
Gomes declined to talk specifically about Sasaki during his media scrum at the general managers’ meetings in San Antonio, as the pitcher had not yet been announced. But Sasaki’s potential speaks for itself.
While he has had some durability issues in Japan, pitching over 100 innings in only two of his four seasons, he had a career 2.10 ERA in NPB while averaging 11.4 strikeouts per nine innings.
“From the time I joined the organization until now, I have nothing but gratitude for how they have continually lent me their ears regarding my future challenge in the MLB and have now given me permission to be deployed,” Sasaki said in Japanese in a statement. made public by the team”.
“In my five years with the Marines, there were many parts that didn’t go well, but throughout I received support from teammates, staff, the front office and fans, and I was able to get to this point by focusing only on the baseball. To have no regrets in my only career in baseball, and to be able to live up to the expectations of those who pushed me on the back, I do everything possible to go from a minor league contract to becoming the number 1 player. of the world.”
There will be a long list of teams trying to court Sasaki. As in the case of Ohtani, his low cost and the great prestige of his skills will attract all kinds of potential suitors. But there has been a lot of speculation in the sector that the Dodgers are the favorites to acquire his services.
They have Ohtani. They have Yamamoto. And they’ve been eyeing Sasaki for several years, waiting for the moment when he could be next.
Columnist Dylan Hernández contributed to this report.
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This article was first published in Los Angeles Times in Spanish.
