Major League Baseball’s regular season is underway, with the Los Angeles Dodgers taking the first game of the Tokyo Series against Chicago Cubs Tuesday morning in Japan. The two sides will convene again Wednesday at 6 a.m. ET and 7 p.m. locally in Tokyo. When they do, it’ll mark the debut of Dodgers right-hander Roki Sasaki, one of the most anticipated recent transfers from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league.
Sasaki, 23, became the latest Japanese star to join the Dodgers when he inked a deal in January worth a $6.5 million signing bonus. Sasaki, along with countrymates Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, will now be tasked with helping the Dodgers become MLB’s first repeat champion in two decades.
Fans tuning back in after the winter sabbatical might wonder — what’s the big deal anyway? Below, we’ve answered that and three other big questions about the Dodgers’ newest star.
1. Why is Sasaki notable?
Sasaki has been on the global radar since April 2022, when he struck out 19 batters as part of NPB’s first perfect game in nearly three decades. He then delivered another eight perfect frames to begin his next start, thereby establishing a record streak of 52 consecutive batters retired.
By the way, Sasaki was only 20 years old at the time … and he was already in possession of a triple-digit fastball. The hype machine could have built itself at that point.
Sasaki battled his share of injuries throughout his four seasons in NPB, obscuring just how dominant he was when hearty and hale. To wit, he amassed a career 2.10 ERA and a 5.74 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 69 appearances. His 26.8% strikeout-minus-walk percentage is the best among recent Japanese pitchers to transfer to MLB — to the extent that only one peer, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, even cleared 20%.
2. How did he end up with the Dodgers?
Sasaki was posted for MLB consideration last winter by the Chiba Lotte Marines. MLB’s transfer agreement with NPB necessitates that players meet certain age- and service time-related qualifications in order to avoid being classified as an “amateur” free agent (thereby limiting their earning potential) — those guardrails are in place so that NPB, a partner league, doesn’t lose every talented young player to a wealthier MLB counterpart at the first turn.
Sasaki didn’t meet those qualifications, and as such he was limited to signing for only as much as a team had in its bonus pool. Money, then, wasn’t necessarily the driving force behind his free agency that it is in most cases. It’s understandable why Sasaki would select the Dodgers (over the Blue Jays and Padres, the other two reported finalists) given Los Angeles’ excellent recent history of competitiveness and player development — and that’s without considering what role, if any, that Team Japan peers Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani had on his decision-making process.
3. How did he fare this spring?
Sasaki made two appearances during the Cactus League: the first as part of a multi-inning relief outing, the second as a starter. In total, he allowed three hits and issued three walks while striking out seven batters across seven scoreless frames.
More notably, Sasaki’s fastball averaged 97.1 mph and he generated 10 whiffs on 12 swings taken against his signature splitter.
4. What to expect moving forward?
On paper, Sasaki has a lot working in his favor. He combines mid-to-upper-90s velocity with a devastating splitter, and a good slider that he hasn’t used much to date. He also has above-average control that stems from a consistent release point. There are two main questions that will determine the shape of his career.
First and foremost, can Sasaki stay healthy? He’s never thrown as many as 130 innings in a season, and he was limited to 33 combined starts the last two years. It’s fair to wonder how Sasaki’s body will hold up now that he’ll be asked to pitch every fifth day instead of once a week as in NPB — and that’s without factoring in the normal wear and tear that comes from a pitcher accumulating miles over the years.
Secondly, Sasaki’s velocity waned a bit last year. That’s notable here because his fastball otherwise features what the industry refers to as a “dead zone” movement profile. In layman’s terms, that means his fastball is easier for batters to track visually because it breaks almost as much vertically as it does horizontally. Paul Skenes, Hunter Greene, and Nathan Eovaldi are other instances of active pitchers with dead zone fastballs who’ve made it work (to varying degrees), so Sasaki should still be able to find success in MLB, even if his fastball does end up playing a little below its reputation.
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