DALLAS — The baseball world is fascinated by Roki Sasaki and where he will play in 2024. But Sasaki is apparently just as insecure as everyone else.
In November, news broke that the 23-year-old Japanese phenomenon was preparing for a trip to the United States. It was expected that Sasaki’s NPB team, the Chiba Lotte Marines, would “post” the highly-hyped pitcher, making him available and affordable to all 30 MLB teams as a free agent. Because Sasaki is under 25 years old, he is subject to restrictions for international amateur players. As a result, the flame-throwing right-hander will receive a signing bonus of no more than approximately $7.5 million. That anomalous decision created a maelstrom of mystery surrounding Sasaki, who wasted hundreds of millions of dollars by making the jump now instead of in two seasons.
Until Sasaki’s official post on Tuesday, very little information had emerged about the talented youngster, his preferences, his thought process and his path forward. But at the winter meetings, atop a makeshift stage in a comically enormous ballroom at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, offered the audience an abundance of clarity.
The impromptu Q&A session was a sight to behold, and the information gathering was as chaotic as you’ll see. Reporters sat eight rows deep in a crescent, their recording equipment extended toward the soft-spoken agent. Wolfe wavered uncomfortably in the middle of the madness, towering over the media in a navy blue jacket, charcoal pants and a pair of Nike Dunks. He spoke slowly, with an almost solemn seriousness. Over the course of twenty minutes, Wolfe received a barrage of questions about his client.
The biggest takeaway? Even Wolfe isn’t sure what Sasaki wants yet.
When asked what Sasaki values when selecting a team, Wolfe was purposefully vague or refreshingly honest. “I’m not quite sure yet,” he said. “I’ve known Roki for a little over two years now and now that I’ve gotten to know him, it’s been a little difficult to really pinpoint what his decision-making process would be when choosing a team because his focus has been mainly on whether he can post or not.”
Here’s what else we learned from Wolfe about this winter’s most sought-after pitcher.
Sasaki’s motivations for coming to the MLB
What exactly prompted Sasaki to leave Japan prematurely was by far the biggest and most compelling unknown about his freedom of choice. Only one other Japanese player in recent history, three-time MVP Shohei Ohtani, followed a similar path. But at the time of his drafting, Ohtani had already established himself as one of the most accomplished players in the NPB. Although Sasaki was immensely talented, he played four tantalizing but incomplete seasons in his native country.
So why now? Why leave so much money on the table? It has to do with Sasaki’s moving life story.
Sasaki was just 9 years old in 2011 when the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami devastated eastern Japan. His father and two of his grandparents died in the tragedy. Understandably, Wolfe said, his client doesn’t talk about it often, though it certainly helps inform his perspective.
“There are no absolutes in baseball,” Wolfe told the crowd of reporters, “and through the eyes of Roki Sasaki, there are no absolutes in life. For the first time in his life, Sasaki will determine his own future. Now he just has to decide what that means.”
Pitching in the MLB has always been Sasaki’s dream; it is not self-evident that the opportunity to realize that dream will still exist in a few years.
His timeline for signing with an MLB team
Sasaki and his representatives at CAA will meet with MLB teams throughout the rest of December. Those conversations will take place in person, at a central location, likely on the West Coast. Clubs will send delegations to Sasaki and Wolfe to avoid the complicated logistics of a frenzied national tour. After the first round of meetings, in which he will narrow down the number of candidates, Sasaki might visit the cities of his finalists.
“We’ll leave it open depending on how the first round of meetings goes,” Wolfe explained.
Sasaki will return to Japan over the holidays before returning to the US to complete the process. Officially, he must wait to sign until January 15, when the next international signing period begins, but news of his final selection could be announced unofficially before then.
However, Sasaki must sign with a team before the January 24 cutoff date.
Given the long road ahead, a conclusion before the new year seems extremely unlikely. This will take time, but in the meantime, the flow of information about Sasaki’s preferences and interactions with teams should increase.
Sasaki’s history with the Japanese media
Wolfe was surprisingly candid and blunt on the subject. Sasaki, who has been extremely famous in Japan since his high school days, entered Japanese professional ball with a coliseum of hype. But a few injuries during his tenure with Chiba limited him to fewer than 400 NPB innings in his career. As a result, many members of the Japanese media contingent in Japan criticized Sasaki’s choice to leave NPB for not reaching the heights of other MLB-bound players.
“Roki has had a tough time in recent years,” said Wolfe, who represents several other Japanese MLB stars including Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Seiya Suzuki, Kodai Senga and Yu Darvish. “The media in Japan has been very harsh on him, and he hasn’t had a great time.”
Whether that dynamic will push Sasaki to a smaller market in the U.S. remains to be seen, but Wolfe did say he could see how such an environment could be beneficial for his client. It was far from definitive, but certainly a fairer-than-usual assessment of a complicated situation.
The mystery of his preferences in the US
Several local writers tried to extract tidbits of information from Wolfe about where his client might prefer to play. But the agent played it straight and refused to eliminate one option or elevate it over another. While many Japanese players have expressed interest in playing on the West Coast due to its proximity to home, Wolfe admitted that Sasaki never gave him such a preference. Wolfe said something similar about market size, proclaiming that he could imagine Sasaki being successful in a city big or small.
“I think that was something five or 10 years ago that they might have weighed a little more, but now you can fly directly from Japan to most major cities in the U.S.,” he said. “It’s not really much. no more problem.”
Wolfe also claimed that he does not know whether Sasaki would prefer to join a team with an established Japanese player or be more in the spotlight as his team’s only Japanese player.
So while many in the game see the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers as the frontrunners for Sasaki, Wolfe was careful not to shake his hand.
Congratulations, Pirates fans, you’re technically still in the mix.
