The Next Big Thing: Rōki Sasaki the 21 Year Old Phenom Set to Shakeup the MLB, Will Dodgers Land Him?
Happy Roki Sasaki Week!
After announcing his intention to come to MLB at the start of the 2024-25 offseason, the 23-year-old Japanese free agent immediately became the most coveted pitcher available this winter thanks to his combination of talent and age, and the parameters of his contract.
With the 2025 international free agent signing period opening Jan. 15 and Sasaki’s posting window closing on Jan. 23, we could find out where Sasaki is headed as soon as Wednesday.
Because Sasaki decided to come to the majors before his 25th birthday, he is limited to a minor league deal with a signing bonus coming from a team’s international bonus pool (capped at just over $7.5 million). That makes the emerging ace a rare free agent star every team can afford to sign.
As we wait for Sasaki’s destination to come into focus, we asked our MLB experts what makes him so good, which major league pitchers he reminds us of, and which teams seem most likely to land him.
What makes Sasaki such a coveted free agent?
Bradford Doolittle: He’s young, accomplished and with measurable tools that might make him baseball’s top prospect right now. But he’s not a prospect in the “maybe he’ll be ‘X’ if he reaches his ceiling” but one that’s already been successful in a high-level league and can slide into a big league rotation. A limited workload threshold, for now, is the only thing that’s really holding back Sasaki’s 2025 projection. With his full collection of team control seasons intact, there is no risk to signing him. And as good as he is now, he has room to grow in terms of his arsenal and how he fills out physically. You just don’t get a combination of factors all lining up like this, not the least of which Sasaki was so anxious to make the jump that he was willing to make max earnings a secondary factor.
