Roki Sasaki to be posted this winter
- Thread starter soxhop411
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i have a hard time seeing how the Sox are competitive here.
It sounds as if he’s going to be posted the same way Ohtani was, where he’s restricted to a minor league deal and can be signed as an international FA.
There are going to be multiple teams lining up offering their entire IFA signing pool to attract him. So what separates Boston from the other let’s say 10-15 offers he’s going to receive for roughly the same value?
Maybe he has a Netflix account and enjoyed watching The Comeback.
It sounds as if he’s going to be posted the same way Ohtani was, where he’s restricted to a minor league deal and can be signed as an international FA.
There are going to be multiple teams lining up offering their entire IFA signing pool to attract him. So what separates Boston from the other let’s say 10-15 offers he’s going to receive for roughly the same value?
Maybe he has a Netflix account and enjoyed watching The Comeback.
This is very strange, it doesn’t make a lot of financial sense for the Marines to post him. Since the Sox are a long shot, I guess it raises the interesting question of how this will upset the international FA class, if the team he signs with will dump their whole bonus pool on him. OTOH would they even have to do that? He’s leaving so much money on the table, what’s a bit smaller signing bonus in the whole scheme?
You’re already getting a value in signing him as a minor leaguer. Pretty sure trying to nickel and dime that offer isn’t getting you in the conversation.
Also, if he gets posted as a 2024 IFA and not a 2025 IFA, the Dodgers have the most money available to offer, because of course they do.
Most of those dollars are likely (unoffically at least) promised to other players given how IFA actually works. Not that all 30 teams shouldn't try to sign him, but there might be the chance to pick up the prospects he'll displace. I'm also wondering if he'll leave even more money on the table and take a smaller bonus. Making the most money clearly isn't his top priority.
Yeah, this feels like he has a destination in mind and it isn't about money. I'd go so far as to say the Marines must have been made some promises/assurances in the future if they're posting him without chance to really cash in themselves.
Right, so everyone can more or less offer him the same $. If I were gambling, I'd take the Dodgers over the field.
It al hinges on whether he wanted to win while being just another guy on a loaded Dodgers team that already has two japanese superstars or if he wants to try and be THE star for another ball club. If he doesn't have this alpha dog mentality I don't see how he's not a Dodger.
ESPN speculates that teams might just not honor certain non-binding financial agreements to latin teenagers in order to throw their whole IFA pool around, which, gross.
My first thought was that somebody’s getting a minority ownership stake. Not legal, but it’s in MLB’s interest to have this guy in pitching here.
Speculates? Teams already do that all the time. It’s known that they over-promise bonuses (compared to their FA pool) and then make different offers or cut players who aren’t panning out at the actual deadline.
the entire IFA process is gross. This is just going to make it more chaotic.
Yes, the article speculates: "... they could trade for international bonus space or free up money by not honoring nonbinding commitments ..."
Was just adding that factoid in, it was new fact to me. Shitty way to do business, telling a 16 year old kid you're going to change his life and then pulling it back.
This was the Roki thread a year ago. Nailed it!
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/roki-sasaki-mlb-watch-2025-probably.41261/
And there's been some discussion of him in a couple of the general MLB forum threads, both from here down: http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/2024-mlb-offseason-news.43966/post-6413531
and here:
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/roki-sasaki-mlb-watch-2025-probably.41261/
And there's been some discussion of him in a couple of the general MLB forum threads, both from here down: http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/2024-mlb-offseason-news.43966/post-6413531
and here:
As for this thread:
The speculation is that the promises were made in the other direction -- that in order to sign him at all upon drafting him originally in 2019, the Marines had to agree to a side deal that they would post him when he wanted to go. Jim Allen has a good explainer up: https://jballallen.com/roki-sasakis-unprecedented-situation/
That was @beautokyo I believe. He felt quite strongly about Roki to the Padres and he could well be right. Darvish was an important mentor for Roki ahead of and during last year's WBC and Darvish also brought a ton of Padres gear and handed it out to all the young guys so there are pictures out there of Roki in a Padres t-shirt and whatnot. Personally I still think it'll be the Dodgers but who knows.
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Try 14 years old, or younger. The most promising kids have deals lined up years in advance. Maybe it’s not for this thread, but actual IFA practices teams operate under are far outside the rules MLB has laid down, and Sasaki signing is going to be a very big storm in an otherwise very calm and ordered pool.
Have to hope it’s the Padres, but as Darviah is getting older it makes sense that Sasaki would want to give his way over now, to make sure he actually has a chance to pitch with Yu.
Any shot the Mariners are in play? They historically have been very involved with prospects coming over from Asia, and Ichiro would be a prime recruiter.
Selfishly, I’m thinking Sasaki to the M’s makes a deal for Gilbert/Woo more possible.
Selfishly, I’m thinking Sasaki to the M’s makes a deal for Gilbert/Woo more possible.
Sox need to do whatever they can to land this possible young ace. If we get a meeting have him show up and see Daiskue, Koji , Hideo and Masa. Show that we have been working with Japanese stars for decades and would love the chance to have him be the next Sox superstar.
Do you know when the extension would kick in? Could it effectively replace Year 2 onward?
The Red Sox pitch to Sasaki would revolve around the young core that they're building. It's literally a top 2 core of players both that have gotten to the majors and that is on their way to the majors in the game. Pick your choice of Baltimore or Boston in those terms. It will be tough to beat out SD or LA, but that's the way to do it. This team could be what the Dodgers are in 2-3 years if you believe in what we're doing.
This is my guess as well. The Yu Darvish connection is well-known, but those things don't always turn out to be deciding factors.
This is what I've never understood. Why can't a team, say, offer him a few million from their IFA pool to get him to sign, and then also commit to buy out some portion (all?) of his controlled years in an extension at Yamamoto money? You could have an absurd scenario in which Sasaki is making pre-arb money for a year or three and then begins a 12 year, $360m extension. The IFA system surely can't prevent a team from giving an extension to a player already in their system.
I would imagine the second commitment would have to be secret (or at least plausibly deniable) in advance of signing, because it makes a farce of the IFA system. But the IFA system is basically all loopholes.
This is a pure recruiting job. His income will directly correlate to future performance via arbitration.
If the Red Sox are going to get him it’ll be because they show him they can make him a better pitcher than anyone else.
The plus of this process in that it won’t gunk up the entire market like Yamamoto, which was just incredibly frustrating to experience.
I’m confident the market is going to move quickly this year.
If the Red Sox are going to get him it’ll be because they show him they can make him a better pitcher than anyone else.
The plus of this process in that it won’t gunk up the entire market like Yamamoto, which was just incredibly frustrating to experience.
I’m confident the market is going to move quickly this year.
That’s if he goes the traditional route, no? Ohtani didn’t sign an extension so if Sasaki wants one to just be done with all the financial security worries, then he can basically choose his team and extend with them for however many years. Or at least that’s what it sounds like.
Right, but I'm not sure when he can do that. The MLBTR description of the circumstances was unclear ... at least to me
Just going to guess that this is where Japanese culture differs. They might elevate the player's interest more out of a long term vision for respect between teams and players, and I guess they've hit the point where it would be disrespectful to keep him? If they were to play hardball, I don't know that it would turn out any better in the short run, let alone for their reputation.
The Sox signed Raffaella to a long term contract before he had a full year of service. It’s legal for the team to rip up the one year pre-arb contract he’s playing in and sign him to a long term deal. Since the posting process has changed it means a lot less that the player isn’t locked into league minimums - I guess it would limit the ability of cheap teams to land posted players, but that was true anyway.
If anyone is going to have a complaint it’s likely to be Chiba Lotte, they’re the ones who will lose out on very real money, but it sounds like they dug this hole themselves.
Posting is no longer buying a player’s rights with no other place for him to go. If they’re not on the page enough that they have to play hard ball, Sasaki likely isn’t going there anyway.
I don't think there's anything to prevent a team from doing this. It's just that there's no real incentive for a team to make such a commitment that far out. Most IFAs are kids that are likely going to spend a few years in the minor leagues and may never make it to the majors. Few if any go straight to the big league club. Ohtani is the only one that immediately leaps to mind that came through the current IFA system.
IF Sasaki has a destination in mind because of specific teammates (Darvish in SD or Ohtani/Yamamoto in LA), he's probably okay with making league minimum for a couple years and then seeing how he likes big league life. He may not require any more commitment than the initial contract. I'm sure if you ask Angels management if they wish they'd locked up Ohtani 2-3 years into his career, they'd say yes. Ohtani apparently preferred the flexibility of going to FA and choosing his next destination, even if it had ended up that he stayed with the Angels.
He has a condo in Brighton! Maybe!
Seriously though, the Dodgers winning the WS without him maybe makes him think twice about going there? Unless he just wants to be around Ohtani and Yamamoto. No way of knowing but I think if LA had failed this year, he might find it a little more compelling to come help them get over the hump.
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Rereading that I was responding to a different idea - that the acquiring MLB team would play hardball on his signing bonus so as not to use up their entire bonus pool on Sasaki, sorry about that.
I guess it comes down to is there a clause in his contract that allows him to force being posted or not? Does NPB not have something like the uniform contract that applies to all players (and where the teams can't undermine their own rights to land a player)? I thought he already asked to be posted last year - if he has this clause, why didn't he use it then? If he doesn't have the clause, then they have no real reason to post him, because they will obviously get screwed.
Yeah, I've never read anything about him being able to force it. The Athletic piece just says "Chiba and Sasaki could have waited two years and made way more," so it sure seems to me that they didn't have to do this. Thus, they are acting on human factors rather than just money, and that's where things are different over there.
Part of Chiba's role here may be that they're worried about attracting future talent if they get a reputation as a team that won't let star players go when they want to be posted.
There's also a concurrent battle brewing in Japan for increasing player protections; Tony Clark was over there this summer to support the players association.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2024/08/25/baseball/japanese-baseball/npb-mlb-union-fight/
There's also a concurrent battle brewing in Japan for increasing player protections; Tony Clark was over there this summer to support the players association.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2024/08/25/baseball/japanese-baseball/npb-mlb-union-fight/
I apologize if Passan's article today was referenced in this thread already. I found this passage interesting. Apparently he held out signing before last season.
"Sasaki's immense fastball velocity shown during the 2023 World Baseball Classic -- he averaged 100.5 mph in Japan's semifinal start against Mexico -- introduced him to an international audience, and though his request to join MLB after the 2023 season went unmet by Lotte, the inevitability of his departure only grew.
Sasaki did not sign his 2024 contract until January, just before Lotte began spring training. Rarely do players hold out from signing their deals until then, and the episode wound up a precursor for what would come after a 10-5 season in which Sasaki posted a 2.35 ERA, struck out 129, walked 32 and gave up two home runs in 111 innings."
LINK
"Sasaki's immense fastball velocity shown during the 2023 World Baseball Classic -- he averaged 100.5 mph in Japan's semifinal start against Mexico -- introduced him to an international audience, and though his request to join MLB after the 2023 season went unmet by Lotte, the inevitability of his departure only grew.
Sasaki did not sign his 2024 contract until January, just before Lotte began spring training. Rarely do players hold out from signing their deals until then, and the episode wound up a precursor for what would come after a 10-5 season in which Sasaki posted a 2.35 ERA, struck out 129, walked 32 and gave up two home runs in 111 innings."
LINK
It's not a cultural issue at all, imho. There is a lot of speculation out there -- in Japanese media, in the Jim Allen link I posted upthread (which was written I think mostly in the hours before the actual posting was announced), and in my own postings on Sasaki in the last year or so -- about him indeed being able to force it. NPB contracts are very different than MLB contracts, and in the rare cases where the teams don't have a lot of leverage upon drafting a certain player, they agree to various legally-binding demands about perks or postings or both. The belief with Roki is that he either got such a deal after being drafted in 2019, or got one at this time last year when the team refused his posting and he held out before re-signing with them for this season, which we discussed in the Roki thread at the time.
Jim Allen's stuff around this was mostly speculation for quite a while, but his recent piece that I linked to now seems very well-sourced, possibly from someone in Sasaki's camp or from whoever his US agent is ("not Boras" is all he gives us). It more or less confirms the idea that Roki had a side letter and that Chiba Lotte had no choice in this matter. It also makes what Norm references below a lot less confusing than it was at the time:
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Oh! OK, well I stand corrected. Good thing we have some in-house expertise on NPB.
I didn't even think about this being a factor: Baseball America: Signing Roki Sasaki Could Land Team An Extra Draft Pick. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
While “foreign professionals” are not eligible for Prospect Performance Incentive (PPI) draft picks, Sasaki doesn’t qualify as a “foreign professional” by MLB’s definitions (which require a player be 25 years old with six years of foreign pro league experience).
Because he’s to be treated like an international amateur for signing purposes, he also will be eligible for PPI awards.
If a player who is PPI eligible wins Rookie of the Year or finishes in the top three in MVP or Cy Young voting in any season before he reaches arbitration eligibility, his team receives an extra draft pick at the end of the first round.
To be PPI eligible, Sasaki would have to be rookie eligible next year (check), with less than 60 days of MLB service time (check) and would need to be on an MLB roster long enough to accrue 172 days of MLB service (almost assuredly check).
He would also have to rank in the Top 100 of two of the three of Baseball America, MLB.com and ESPN.com’s Top 100 Prospects lists (maybe check).
This could end up being the trickiest eligibility hurdle for Sasaki. Here at Baseball America, he will be Top 100 Prospect eligible and will assuredly rank in the top 10. We no longer rank “foreign professionals,” but Sasaki is signing an MiLB contract, has zero MLB playing time and is rookie of the year eligible. For our purposes at Baseball America, that makes him prospect eligible.
If MLB.com or ESPN also opt to rank Sasaki, he would meet that requirement.
While “foreign professionals” are not eligible for Prospect Performance Incentive (PPI) draft picks, Sasaki doesn’t qualify as a “foreign professional” by MLB’s definitions (which require a player be 25 years old with six years of foreign pro league experience).
Because he’s to be treated like an international amateur for signing purposes, he also will be eligible for PPI awards.
If a player who is PPI eligible wins Rookie of the Year or finishes in the top three in MVP or Cy Young voting in any season before he reaches arbitration eligibility, his team receives an extra draft pick at the end of the first round.
To be PPI eligible, Sasaki would have to be rookie eligible next year (check), with less than 60 days of MLB service time (check) and would need to be on an MLB roster long enough to accrue 172 days of MLB service (almost assuredly check).
He would also have to rank in the Top 100 of two of the three of Baseball America, MLB.com and ESPN.com’s Top 100 Prospects lists (maybe check).
This could end up being the trickiest eligibility hurdle for Sasaki. Here at Baseball America, he will be Top 100 Prospect eligible and will assuredly rank in the top 10. We no longer rank “foreign professionals,” but Sasaki is signing an MiLB contract, has zero MLB playing time and is rookie of the year eligible. For our purposes at Baseball America, that makes him prospect eligible.
If MLB.com or ESPN also opt to rank Sasaki, he would meet that requirement.
Regarding signing Sasaki to an extension the CBA is clear "No Club or player (including their designated representatives) may enter into any understanding, agreement, or transaction, or make any representation, whether implied or explicit, that is designed to defeat or circumvent the provisions of the International Amateur Talent System. Any Club (or its representatives) that is found to have engaged in circumvention or attempted circumvention will be subject to sanctions by the Commissioner, including fines, suspensions, non-approval of the transaction(s) or contract(s), and loss of future signing rights."
If Sasaki sits down with the Dodgers and they bring in Yamamoto and Ohtani, is there any way he doesn't sign with them?
I'm getting here late on this thread. Sorry. It's my understanding that if he signs with a MLB team it'll have to be for 6 years? Darvish is his boyhood idol. This is a fact! All the previous talk surrounding him is that this is what he wanted to do (2023) Before Yamamoto signed and now the Dodgers are the defending WS Champions. I think this past year could potentially alter his thinking. Yes he could sigh with SD but how many more years does Darvish have left? He's 38. Wouldn't it be better for him to go to LA and not have to be #1 mentally? Then again, how many spots do the Dodgers have in their starting rotation. I'm guessing that it wouldn't matter giving his talent. Lots of possibilities going forward here especially with the Cubs and Mets having high caliber players on their roster. If Yoshida can pull some magic and he comes to Boston he would make this team a force to reckon with once a week anyways. I think Darvish only having a couple of years left will change his thinking about SD. I hope I'm right but it would be a sad set of affairs if he goes to the Dodgers
He might want to be THE guy. It's going to be much harder for him to stand out on a team with Yamamoto and Ohtani.
While everything seems to point to the Dodgers being the favorite, IMO Sasaki signing with the Dodgers would be horrible for baseball. The competitive imbalance in spending is less terrible than it could be for the sport because of the sense that once the playoffs begin anything could happen. A Dodgers dynasty would get old very, very quickly.
Any concerns at all over Sasaki's lower velocity and decline in K-rate this past NPB season? I mean, he sat 99 previously so it's not like a 96.9 average is an issue, but losing 2 mph on your fastball from one season to the next at that age isn't just variance either.