Connelly: What will Deion’s Colorado roster actually look like on the field?
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Bill Connelly, ESPN Staff Writer
If you’ve talked to a coach or a fan or a writer or an analyst or anyone else about use of the transfer portal in college football, you’ve probably either said it or heard it: “It’s like free agency!” Indeed, player movement has increased significantly, so there’s an element of truth to the thought, if exaggerated. But credit Colorado‘s Deion Sanders for changing the game a bit. It’s not like free agency for Coach Prime and his Buffaloes in 2023 — it’s like an expansion draft.
After Sanders’ first spring practice was over in Boulder, 47 players entered the transfer portal, joining the many former Buffaloes who were already there. Some left of their own volition, and others were told to go. The portal and the (temporary, for now) elimination of signing limits have allowed new coaches to flip large portions of their inherited rosters in much quicker fashion than was previously possible. But Sanders has attempted to flip nearly the entire dang thing.
We don’t really know how this will all work out, but there can be no doubting two things:
1. Sanders has upgraded the amount of higher-end talent on his roster. By my count, there were two former blue-chip recruits on Colorado’s roster last year. Including incoming freshmen, there are now something in the neighborhood of 15 or 16, including five — five-star sophomore corner Travis Hunter (Jackson State), junior corner Omarion Cooper (Florida State), junior nickelback Myles Slusher (Arkansas), junior safety Travis Jay (Florida State) and five-star freshman corner Cormani McClain — in a potentially dynamite secondary.
2. Colorado is almost guaranteed to improve, both because of the talent upgrade and the fact that the team almost literally couldn’t be worse. The Buffaloes went 1-11 last season and ranked a dreadful 124th in SP+. In the past 15 years, a power-conference team has never ranked worse. In terms of SP+ percentile ratings, the only CU team that has graded out lower was the 1962 edition, which at one point lost to six straight Big 8 opponents by a combined 278-49.
That doesn’t mean that every player on the team was terrible and needed to be replaced — a lot of CU’s incoming transfers don’t appear to be any better or more successful than some of the players who left, and quite a few of the outgoing transfers landed at schools that have been a lot better than Colorado of late. But while this overhaul feels like overkill, it will generate improvement. There’s almost no choice.
Personally, I’m not a fan of this grand experiment, if primarily for the scope of the precedent it sets. After a lengthy fight, college athletes have begun to actually earn what’s theirs in terms of both money and control over their playing careers. The idea that a coach can come in and boot nearly everyone on the roster flips the balance of power too far in the other direction. Colorado technically followed protocol by allowing players who have been cut to continue on scholarship at CU, but a coach never has to worry about too many players selecting that option since they wouldn’t be allowed to play football anymore.
Nearly every coach in the country ends up asking a few players to transfer to make the scholarship math work, but Sanders’ moves had nothing to do with scholarship math and everything to do with exerting total control over a roster. I wrote in March that I was a fan of getting rid of the annual 25-man limit on scholarships a school can give out — it feels like a grave necessity in the portal era — but this makes me think there should still be some sort of limit, even if it’s a huge one (40? 50?).
My personal opinions don’t really matter, though. This is happening, and aside from “They can’t get worse,” it’s been pretty difficult to get a grasp on how Colorado might fare on the field in Sanders’ first season. Hell, it’s been difficult to even envision what a two-deep might look like. But with portal activity slowing down, let’s take a shot.
Below, we’re going to walk through a potential position-by-position depth chart for Sanders’ Buffaloes in 2023. It’s a loose estimate based almost entirely on known production and/or recruiting rankings. Call it a best-case scenario two-deep of sorts — if everyone lives up to potential, this could be a version of Colorado’s best lineup. How much of an upgrade are we talking about here, and how much of Sanders’ moves were more of the “trading like for like” variety?
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
Roki Sasaki, the prized Japanese pitching prospect who has had scouts drooling over his potential since high school, has chosen the Los Angeles Dodgers as his major league team, he announced on Instagram on Friday.
Sasaki called this “a very difficult decision, but I will do my best to make it the right decision when I look back after my baseball career.”
The Dodgers, long viewed as the favorites for Sasaki, had recently emerged as one of three finalists for the 23-year-old right-hander, along with the Toronto Blue Jays and San Diego Padres. On Friday morning, the Padres began agreeing to deals with their prospective international signees in the Dominican Republic, a clear sign throughout the industry that they were out on Sasaki. The Blue Jays thusly acquired $2 million in international-bonus-pool space — along with center fielder Myles Straw — from the Cleveland Guardians in hopes of enticing Sasaki further.
It ultimately did not matter. A Dodgers team coming off a World Series title with a roster headlined by Japanese countrymen Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto again landed one of the biggest prizes of the offseason.
In the Dodgers, Sasaki joins a team that has built a reputation as one of the best at developing talent and one that expects to field an incredibly deep rotation in 2025. Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow return from last year’s group. Ohtani, who will resume his duties as a two-way player, will be added. Blake Snell signed a five-year, $182 million contract in November. Clayton Kershaw is expected to return at some point, as well. And younger arms such as Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and Bobby Miller remain in the organization, making it easy for the Dodgers to field a six-man rotation that would lessen Sasaki’s acclimation process.
Because he is under 25 years old and spent less than six seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball, Sasaki essentially will sign a minor league contract and follow the path of a player selected in the amateur draft — able to be optioned to the minors, scheduled to earn close to the major league minimum during his first three major league seasons and unable to become a traditional free agent until attaining six years of service time.
Teams were limited to giving Sasaki only their international bonus pools, which ranged from about $5.1 million to $7.5 million at the start of the signing period.
Sasaki features a mesmerizing splitter that has been lauded as one of the world’s best secondary pitches and pairs it with a fastball that reaches 100 mph, adding a slider that has also been deemed a plus pitch. In four seasons with the Chiba Lotte Marines, Sasaki posted a 2.02 ERA, a 0.88 WHIP and 524 strikeouts against 91 walks in 414 2/3 innings.
In an April 10, 2022, start against the Orix Buffaloes, Sasaki pitched a perfect game while setting an NPB record with 13 consecutive strikeouts. Seven days later, he took the mound again and fired eight perfect innings before being removed from his outing. The following spring, Sasaki showcased his talents on a global stage, forming a star-studded rotation alongside Ohtani, Yu Darvish, Shota Imanaga and Yamamoto for a Japanese team that won the World Baseball Classic.
For years, major league scouts and executives descended upon Japan to catch a glimpse of Sasaki and salivated over the possibility of him someday being posted. When it finally occurred in early December, upwards of 20 teams made initial pitches, doing so with videos and letters and even books. Sasaki flew to the L.A. headquarters of his agency, Wasserman, later that month and conducted meetings with at least eight teams — the Dodgers, Padres, Blue Jays, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants.
Earlier this week, five of those teams were informed they were out of the running, prompting Sasaki to take follow-up meetings in Toronto, San Diego and L.A. before coming to his decision.
Sasaki needed to select his new team between Jan. 15, the start of this year’s international signing period, and Jan. 23, the expiration of his posting window. His presence in the international amateur market left prospective signees of the three finalists in limbo on deals that are verbally agreed to years in advance, causing particular consternation within the Dominican Republic. The Dodgers, Padres and Blue Jays needed to not only free up their international bonus pools for the potential of landing Sasaki, but entertain the possibility of trading for additional space in hopes of enticing him further.
Sasaki starred in Summer Koshien, the prominent Japanese high school tournament, and was taken No. 1 overall in the NPB draft in 2019. The Lotte Marines handled him carefully, restricting him to bullpen sessions and simulated games in 2020 and limiting his workload whenever possible thereafter. Sasaki’s numbers were down a bit last year, his ERA rising to 2.35. His four-seam fastball went from averaging roughly 98 mph to 96. At one point, shoulder fatigue cropped up. There are concerns about how Sasaki will handle a major league workload, and many will acknowledge that his command needs improvement.
But few doubt his ceiling.
Within these next handful of years, several prominent evaluators believe, Sasaki could be an annual Cy Young contender.
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