Roki Sasaki Will Be Posted To Come To MLB
Image credit: (Photo by Eric Espada/Getty Images)
The Chiba Lotte Marines have announced their plans to post righthander Roki Sasaki to come to the U.S. for the 2025 MLB season, which just made the offseason a whole lot more interesting.
Sasaki immediately becomes one of the best pitchers available this offseason, and the unique rules around his contract mean that he’ll be signing for a fraction of the value he would receive as a true free agent.
Sasaki has been the hardest-throwing starting pitcher in Japan with a 100+ mph fastball and devastating splitter, which he showed pitching in the U.S. during the World Baseball Classic. At his best, he’s been dominant. Sasaki has already thrown arguably the best two back-to-back games in professional baseball history–he threw a 19-strikeout perfect game in April 2022, and followed it with eight perfect innings in his next start before he was pulled. We wrote about him being among the best pitching prospects in baseball in 2022, and nothing since then has changed that dramatically. He rated as the No. 1 prospect in the World Baseball Classic in 2023.
But the 23-year-old has yet to show the durability expected of an ace. Sasaki has yet to throw 130 innings in a season, tossing just 111 and 91 innings in the past two seasons.
Sasaki alluded to those struggles in the social media post Chiba Lotte posted to announce the decision:
“Since I joined the team, the team has been listening to my thoughts about my future challenge in the MLB, and I am very grateful to the team for officially allowing me to post now. There were many things that did not go well during my five years with the Marines, but I was always supported by my teammates, staff, front office, and fans, and was able to come this far by concentrating only on baseball. I will do my best to work my way up from my minor contract to become the best player in the world, so that I will have no regrets in my one and only baseball career and so that I can live up to the expectations of everyone who has supported me this time,” Sasaki said in a translated X post.
While Juan Soto leads the 2024-2025 free agent class, his contract length and amount means that most MLB teams are not realistic options to land the outfielder.
But because Sasaki does not meet the requirements to be treated as a “foreign professional,” he will be signing a contract like an “international amateur.” That means that all 30 teams could easily afford Sasaki’s bonus. He will be signing a MiLB contract, and once he reaches the majors, he will be paid MLB minimum salaries and will not reach arbitration until his third season at the earliest. MLB has strict rules prohibiting circumvention of bonus rules, so teams will be prohibited from making under-the-table deals to try to boost the value of Sasaki’s initial contract.
By posting him now, Chiba Lotte is forgoing millions of dollars. If Sasaki posted after the 2026 season and remained healthy, he’d likely garner a $200 million or larger contract, and the Marines would receive a 20% posting fee. In the case of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Orix Buffaloes received a $50 million posting fee.
But because Sasaki is subject to international bonus pool restrictions, the Marines will only receive a high six-figure or low seven-figure posting fee.
