Dodgers win Rōki Sasaki sweepstakes, cementing status as preferred destination for NPB stars

Last December, the Dodgers’ addition of Shohei Ohtani concluded one of their greatest pursuits and began another. 

“One of our goals is to have baseball fans in Japan convert to Dodger blue,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said at Ohtani’s introductory press conference, “and to have Shohei along with the rest of his teammates help grow the game and passion for Dodgers baseball all across Japan.”

Weeks later, luring Yoshinobu Yamamoto furthered their cause. And on Friday, the Dodgers cemented their status as the preferred MLB destination for NPB stars and transformed their rotation into a triumvirate of Japanese pitching luminaries by winning the Rōki Sasaki sweepstakes. In a possible ode to Ohtani, Sasaki broke the news of his much-anticipated decision, which was long expected to be Los Angeles, with an Instagram post.

RELATED: Who is Rōki Sasaki? What to know about the Japanese pitching sensation bound for MLB

While Ohtani might not be ready to pitch at the outset of the 2025 season, the Dodgers can expect Ohtani, Yamamoto and now Sasaki, three of the most gifted NPB pitchers in recent history, all on the mound for them at some point in 2025.

Unlike the 10-year, $700 million deal for Ohtani, which set an MLB record, and the 12-year, $325 million contract for Yamamoto, which set a pitching record, acquiring Sasaki didn’t break the bank. The 23-year-old, who was subject to international amateur free-agent restrictions that limited him to MLB clubs’ bonus pool money — this was also the case for Ohtani when he signed with the Angels in 2017 — will receive a reported $6.5 million signing bonus from the Dodgers. The contract is otherwise like any minor-league deal, meaning Sasaki is under team control for six years and will make the league minimum over the next three years before becoming eligible for arbitration.

Ohtani has been the biggest bargain in the sport, given all the deferrals in his contract and the many revenue streams he creates, but Sasaki can create a strong argument, too, if he pitches to his capabilities. 

“He has talked about his desire to be the best pitcher in the world,” Friedman said, “and we believe that he is capable of being the best pitcher in the world.”

Sasaki was affordable for any team, but it was the one with the highest payroll that ultimately secured his services. The reigning champs needed pitching help this winter. By signing Sasaki and Blake Snell, they acquired arguably two of the top three most desired pitchers on the market. 

The Dodgers made their interest in Sasaki known early, with Friedman describing the pitcher as “a major priority” at the winter meetings in December. They hoped Sasaki’s experience winning the World Baseball Classic alongside Ohtani and Yamamoto could help their cause. 

Clearly, it didn’t hurt. 

“He has paid attention to how teams have done, as far as overall success, both this year and years past,” Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, said shortly after Sasaki was posted. “He does watch a lot of Major League Baseball. He has paid attention to what his WBC teammates have done. He’s talked to a lot of players, foreign players, that have been on his team with Chiba Lotte. He asked a lot of questions about weather, about comfortability, about pitching development.”

It’s no wonder, then, why Los Angeles was an obvious fit and why the Dodgers stood out as the favorites to land the latest Japanese sensation. Wolfe advised Sasaki early in the process not to base his decision on how much bonus pool money a team had and to instead consider “the long-term arc” of his career when sifting through his options. Sasaki is entrusting the Dodgers to develop and protect him until he is eligible to sign for the nine-figure deal he would have gotten on the open market. 

During their initial pitch to Sasaki, the Dodgers sought to sell the city, the opportunities it could provide, the stability of the organization, the infrastructure they already have in place to support Japanese players and how they could help him grow and develop. In Sasaki, there’s a lot for their pitching development staff to work with. The young flamethrower combines a fastball that gets into the triple digits with a slider and a lethal splitter that routinely misses bats and might already be one of the best offerings in MLB. 

Sasaki finished his four-year NPB career going 29-15 with a 2.10 ERA, 0.89 WHIP and 5.74 strikeout-to-walk ratio while striking out 11.5 batters per nine innings. His most dominant years came in 2022, when he threw a 19-strikeout perfect game, and 2023, when he struck out 135 batters in 91 innings. His numbers and velocity took a hit last year, likely due in part to the shoulder soreness he experienced. Health and durability are his biggest question marks — he threw fewer than 130 innings in each of his four NPB seasons — but his value is expected to far exceed his contract, regardless. On a deal this affordable, the risk is minimal. 

The signing should be a boon to a Dodgers team that entered this winter in the market for starting pitching after surviving a litany of injuries in their rotation to win the World Series. A 2024 season that began with Tyler Glasnow, Gavin Stone, James Paxton, Bobby Miller and Yamamoto in their Opening Day rotation ended with just one of those pitchers, Yamamoto, available in October. 

Glasnow was unable to finish out his first year in Los Angeles due to an elbow sprain. Stone emerged as a standout rookie and an invaluable steadying force as injuries beset the rest of the staff until he too eventually succumbed. He will likely miss all of the 2025 season after undergoing shoulder surgery. Paxton was designated for assignment and traded to the Red Sox. Miller was coming off a promising rookie year but took a major step back after dealing with a shoulder issue early in the year. 

The Dodgers’ options in October dwindled further as young talents Emmet Sheehan, River Ryan and Kyle Hurt all needed Tommy John surgery. The breadth of absences was so significant that Friedman said he planned to put together a task force this offseason to rethink and re-examine how they bring their pitchers along. 

In the postseason, they relied on just a three-man rotation of Yamamoto, Jack Flaherty and Walker Buehler. The latter two pitchers are now free agents, which left the Dodgers in need. They responded admirably.

Whether they revamp the way they develop their pitchers in any meaningful way, adding more of the best arms to the group is one way to combat the industry-wide injury issue. 

“There’s no such thing as too much pitching,” Friedman said. “We learned that last year.”

Sasaki will join a Dodgers rotation that is expected to have Glasnow back alongside Snell and Yamamoto as the headliners in the spring. It’s one of the most talented groups in the sport but also one with plenty of health question marks, particularly behind that quintet. 

Ohtani was already building back up from his second major elbow reconstruction when he underwent surgery on his left shoulder earlier this month. Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May are expected back, but Gonsolin is returning from Tommy John surgery and May has pitched just 191.2 big-league innings — and never more than 56 in a regular season — since debuting as a 21-year-old in 2019. 

The Dodgers’ group of young contributors on the mound could include Ben Casparius and Landon Knack, who were both on the playoff roster, as well as Miller and Justin Wrobleski. Prospects Jackson Ferris and Nick Frasso, who missed last year after undergoing labrum surgery, could also work their way into the mix. General manager Brandon Gomes said Sheehan could possibly return at some point in the second half, though that will be determined by his rehab and recovery. 

That’s a lot of possibilities, but considering that the Dodgers are still planning to operate a six-man rotation to accommodate the schedules of Yamamoto and Ohtani, that Ohtani’s deferrals created room to add, that even the best-laid pitching plans can go awry (as last year demonstrated) and the high cost of trying to bolster a roster at the deadline, the Dodgers sought to create as stable a group as possible right now. 

“My goal is to do everything we can right now to not buy in July,” Friedman said. “It is terrible. It is a terrible time to acquire talent.” 

Rōki Sasaki’s best pitches in the World Baseball Classic

Sasaki significantly raises the ceiling of the group and serves as the latest example of the club’s foothold in Japan. The Dodgers signed Hideo Nomo in 1995, Hiroki Kuroda in 2008 and Kenta Maeda in 2016, but what they’ve done since the end of the 2023 season has reached new heights — and quelled any concern that players coming to the states from NPB want to forge a separate path from other Japanese talents. 

“It’s different for every single player,” Wolfe said. “Each player is unique in how they feel about it, and I think it also matters on the player that is already on the team. How much do they reach out to other Japanese players? How are they perceived by this particular Japanese player? And it just varies player to player.”

With Sasaki, Wolfe said having Japanese players already on the team could be an attraction, “to have an older player to help show him the ropes.” In Yamamoto and Ohtani, he’ll have two.

In October, before that duo helped the Dodgers to a World Series title, Friedman began the month in their home country watching Japan’s latest pitching phenom. The Dodgers had long held interest in Sasaki, a prodigy who had been on MLB teams’ radars since his high school days. 

Now, he’s the latest example of the Dodgers’ growing influence in Japan. Seven years after their failed pursuit of Ohtani, he’s a Dodger, and so is the latest Japanese amateur free-agent pitching phenom to follow in his footsteps. 

Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner. 

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