Breaking: Rōki Sasaki’s Agent Accuses MLB Executive of Poor Sportsmanship Amid Dodgers Speculation

Speculation about star Nippon Professional Baseball right-hander Roki Sasaki being likely to sign with the Dodgers — or even having a predetermined “handshake” deal to sign in L.A. once formally posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines — has drawn a sharp rebuke from his representatives. Agent Joel Wolfe of Wasserman emphatically denied that there’s any truth to those rumors, telling Evan Drellich of The Athletic:

“While a bunch of executives who should know me better and do a lot of business with me insult my integrity by insinuating that I would be a part of some type of nefarious agreement, in reality, this is just poor sportsmanship.”

Much of the speculation regarding the Dodgers and Sasaki stems from L.A. having the largest amount of money remaining in their 2024 international bonus pool — roughly $2.5M. There’s the fact that the Dodgers employ a pair of high-profile Japanese stars, Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto — Wolfe and Wasserman represent the latter. Of course, Wolfe/Wasserman are no strangers to representing high-profile international talent. They’ve also represented NPB stars like Kodai Senga and Seiya Suzuki, among others, in recent years.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred suggested this week that Sasaki’s posting will likely stretch into the 2025 signing period, which throws a wrench into the thinking behind the Dodgers having an edge due to their remaining amount of international pool space. When the 2025 signing period kicks off on Jan. 15, the Dodgers will be tied with the Giants for the smallest pool in the game at $5,146,200, per Baseball America. (The Dodgers forfeited two draft picks and $1M in international pool space when signing Ohtani last offseason.)

All clubs can acquire additional bonus pool space, which is tradeable in $250K increments. However, a club can only acquire up to 60% of its initial pool allotment. For the Dodgers, that means they’ll be capped at offering a bonus in the vicinity of $8.25M to Sasaki, and even that would require trading plenty of assets to acquire the maximum $3.09M in extra space they can add. Each of the Reds, Tigers, Marlins, Twins, Brewers, A’s, Mariners and Rays will start the 2025 period with pools of $7.555M. The Padres, another commonly speculated landing spot for Sasaki, will begin 2025 with a $6.26M pool.

In theory, any of those teams with a $7.555M pool could offer a maximum bonus of just over $12M if they succeed in acquiring the full 60% of possible additional space. The Padres and others in their bracket could top at just over $10M.

In practice, it’s unlikely another club would be able to acquire such a weighty slate of international funds. Teams throughout the league continue to thumb their nose at the supposed rules barring them from negotiating advance deals with teenage talent on the international free agent market. Most clubs have already committed most of their 2025 pools on handshake deals with teenage prospects in Latin America. Whichever club signs Sasaki will likely do so at the cost of reneging on existing agreements with amateurs in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and other Latin American countries. Similarly, teams that don’t feel they have a real chance to sign Sasaki will be reluctant to trade significant chunks of their bonus pool, given that so many of those dollars are effectively committed elsewhere.

Baseball America’s Ben Badler took a comprehensive look at the ripple effects of Sasaki’s signing, potentially pushing into next year’s period last week before Manfred publicly suggested it was likely. Badler reports that the Dodgers and Padres have committed less of their 2025 pool to Latin American agreements than most clubs around the league, likely due to their hope that Sasaki would be posted and positioned to make the best offer.

There will likely be clubs willing to scrap their existing verbal agreements to pursue Sasaki full-fledged. Some of those teams will inherently have more to offer the right-hander. The trickle-down effect could see players who thought they’d be signing with a Sasaki bidder instead explore last-minute deals with other clubs, creating a domino effect throughout the Latin American market.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic also tackled this issue, exploring the many pitfalls of a flawed international free agent system the league and MLBPA have yet to address sufficiently. As he notes, it feels patently ridiculous that a player like Sasaki, who has dominated in NPB for the past four seasons and just turned 23, is categorized alongside a 16-year-old prospect from Latin America. Rosenthal suggested the league separate Sasaki from international bonus pools but not make him an unrestricted free agent; rather, cap his bonus at the $7.555M sum the top teams will have in next year’s signing period. That’s an imperfect solution in and of itself, of course. It could very well push Sasaki toward one of the widely expected landing spots (L.A. or San Diego) anyhow; all teams would effectively be on an even playing field, and a West Coast, win-now club would quite possibly hold more appeal than a Midwest team with less certain playoff aspirations.

There’s no perfect solution that can be put forth in the coming weeks. Sasaki’s decision to leave hundreds of millions of dollars on the table — Yamamoto waited until he was 25 years old to shed his “amateur” status and commanded a $325M deal in L.A. — creates an impossible predicament for Major League Baseball and its current international amateur setup.

This situation will be a talking point, if not the focal point, during ensuing discussions regarding a potential international draft in the next wave of collective bargaining talks between MLB and the Players Association. For now, it’s a messy situation that’ll result in plenty of accusations, finger-pointing, and likely some jilted Latin American prospects who are left scrambling for new arrangements.