Roki Sasaki signs with the Dodgers

Japanese right-handed Roki Sasaki has announced it Instagram that he signs with the Dodgers. Hat tip to Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic. Since Sasaki is subject to the international bonus pool system, it will technically be a minor league deal, but he is certain to be on the club’s opening day roster as long as he is healthy.

In the end, it’s a fairly unsurprising result, although other outcomes seemed somewhat possible at times. The Dodgers have long been seen as the most logical landing spot for Sasaki, and while the Padres and Blue Jays tried to make surprise runs, the most likely outcome has now come to fruition.

Sasaki’s free agency has been highly anticipated for some time. He made his debut in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball in 2021 at the young age of 19 and continued to deliver excellent results over the past few years. Thanks to triple-digit velocity on his fastball and a deadly splitter, he has managed to post a 2.10 earned run average in 394 2/3 innings over the last four years. He struck out 32.7% of batters faced and limited walks to a 5.7% clip.

That performance would have made him one of the best free agents this or any other season, which would normally have set him up for a massive payday. However, Sasaki seemed determined to start his big league career as soon as possible, without much regard for money.

If he had waited until he turned 25, he would have been considered a professional under MLB rules, and thus could sign for any amount the market would bear. That was the route that went Yoshinobu Yamamotowho secured a $325MM guarantee from the Dodgers last offseason.

But Sasaki is making the move now that he’s just turned 23, which means he’s considered an amateur and thus subject to MLB’s international bonus pool system. Under this system, each team is given a fixed amount to spend on international amateurs annually. This year, each team gets between $5-8MM, a pittance compared to what Yamamoto secured. This made it at least theoretically possible for any club to sign him, as the big clubs could not outbid the smaller clubs as with many other free agents.

But despite the theoretically even playing field, there were still plenty of good reasons to expect the Dodgers to win, even without the ability to simply outplay other suitors. Sasaki and his agent Joel Wolfe didn’t reveal much about the player’s preferences, but logically the Dodgers are an attractive landing spot. They play on the West Coast, which is often attractive to players coming over from Asia simply because of the relative proximity. They have a strong track record of success on the field, having made the playoffs every year going back to 2013 now and just winning the World Series a few months ago. They also bring together a few other Japanese stars in Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani.

It was not known how much Sasaki would weigh these factors compared to others. Wolfe pushed back on the idea that Sasaki worried about the presence of other Japanese players. He also suggested last month that Sasaki might prefer a smaller market because of some friction with the media during his time in Japan.

There was some argument for possibly considering scenarios where he would prefer to go elsewhere. The Padres could have offered a smaller market than the Dodgers, and it was reported that Sasaki has a strong relationship with the current Padre Yu Darvish. The Blue Jays are owned by Rogers Communications, the club’s primary broadcaster, potentially allowing them to lower Sasaki’s access to the media. The fact that they are the only MLB team in Canada also theoretically opened up more endorsement opportunities from Japanese companies, as opposed to sharing the LA market with Ohtani and Yamamoto. The Jays also had a larger international bonus pool than the Dodgers and added to it by acquiring more pool space from the Guardians in a trade earlier today.

But despite any short-term drama that unfolded this offseason, the most obvious has happened. Sasaki has joined a team already loaded with stars like Ohtani, Yamamoto, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. 2005 was the last time the Dodgers lost fewer than 80 games, and now they add another hugely talented player to the mix.

More to come.