Japanese star RHP Sasaki to be posted to MLB
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
The Chiba Lotte Marines announced Saturday that they will begin the process of posting Roki Sasaki, the Japanese right-hander considered one of the most talented pitchers in the world, paving the way for the 23-year-old to join Major League Baseball in 2025.
The posting system is the method of transfer between MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball that makes him available to all 30 teams.
“I am very grateful to the team for officially allowing me to post,” Sasaki said in a statement posted by the Marines on X. “There were many things that did not go well during my five years with the Marines, but I was able to get to this point by concentrating only on baseball, with the support of my teammates, staff, front office, and fans. 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 live up to the expectations of everyone who has supported me.”
Sasaki, nicknamed “The Monster of the Reiwa Era,” throws a fastball that regularly reaches triple digits and complements it with a frontline split-fingered fastball and a slider.
Because of his age, Sasaki is considered an international amateur free agent and can sign only a minor league contract, which drastically limits how much teams can pay him — and how much Lotte reaps through the associated 20% posting fee. Players who are at least 25 with six years played in a foreign league can sign major league contracts when posted. Had he waited, Sasaki could have sought a deal for hundreds of millions of dollars, similar to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers in late December for 12 years and $325 million. Instead, Sasaki, who asked to be posted last year but was denied by the team, will take a similar path as Shohei Ohtani, the superstar who arrived in MLB at 23 and signed with the Los Angeles Angels for $2.3 million.
The timing of Sasaki’s posting — which has yet to be set, sources said — will determine whether he falls into the 2024 or 2025 international amateur class. When a player is posted, he has a 45-day window to sign with a major league team. Though Sasaki would join an organization on a minor league deal, a team can add him to its major league roster before the 2025 season.
International amateur bonus pools are capped, with the top teams this year able to spend just over $7.1 million, larger-market, higher-spending teams at $4.6 million and the rest in between. Teams can add up to 60% of their allotted pools by trading for other teams’ bonus-pool money. Most teams have spent the majority of their 2024 bonus pools already, with the signing period for international free agents running from Jan. 15 to Dec. 15 annually.
Were the official posting to be delayed until mid-December — it typically takes weeks to complete the process — Sasaki could sign when the 2025 international period opens Jan. 15. Though most teams have commitments lined up for players in that period — the top bonus pools are around $7.5 million and the bottom around $5.1 million — they could trade for international bonus space or free up money by not honoring nonbinding commitments they have made to teenagers from Latin American countries, an infrequent but not unheard of occurrence.
For a player of Sasaki’s talent, teams are likely to do whatever they can to convince him to sign.
Sasaki emerged as a national star in Japan five years ago during Koshien, the national high school baseball tournament that is one of the country’s biggest annual sporting events. Over an eight-day period, he threw more than 500 pitches, including a 12-inning, 21-strikeout, 194-pitch complete game.
In 2022, at 20, Sasaki threw a 19-strikeout perfect game for Lotte and followed in his next start a week later with eight more perfect innings before being pulled. 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.
Often players are posted when Japanese teams regard them as having “earned” the privilege, multiple sources familiar with past postings said. Though Sasaki has shown flashes of brilliance over his 394⅔ innings — going 29-15 with a 2.10 ERA and 505 strikeouts against 88 walks in 64 starts over four seasons — he would not arrive in MLB with the same sort of résumé as his predecessors.
The rousing success of Japanese players in MLB has been one of the game’s biggest stories of the past decade, with soon-to-be three-time MVP Ohani, Yamamoto, left-handers Shota Imanaga (Chicago Cubs) and Yusei Kikuchi (free agent), and outfielders Seiya Suzuki (Cubs) and Masataka Yoshida (Boston Red Sox) all going through the posting system. Right-hander Kodai Senga joined the New York Mets without a posting fee after 11 seasons with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.
MLB teams had braced for the possibility that Lotte would hold onto Sasaki for at least two more years, allowing him to reach 25 and for the organization to experience the full financial benefit of the posting. NPB teams control players’ rights for nine seasons before they reach free agency and can operate outside of the posting system. Had Lotte waited until after the 2026 season, it could have received tens of millions of dollars via the posting fee paid by the acquiring team. The Dodgers paid the Orix Blue Wave more than $50 million after signing Yamamoto.
Los Angeles will be linked strongly to Sasaki, but assuming he will go to the Dodgers is premature. While the presence of Sasaki’s Samurai Japan teammates Ohtani and Yamamoto in Los Angeles is advantageous, the attention they bring — and the media horde that follows them — adds a different element than other teams.
Throughout the 2024 season, MLB presidents of baseball operations and general managers were fixtures at Sasaki’s starts. Sasaki is close with right-hander Yu Darvish, whose team, the San Diego Padres, figures to be a potential landing spot. Both New York teams have extreme interest in Sasaki, though he could also opt for an organization with pedigree and experience (the Chicago Cubs), a team in an international city (the Toronto Blue Jays), one whose past success with Japanese players still resonates (Darvish started his career with the Texas Rangers) or those whose reputation for bringing the best out in players might appeal (the Tampa Bay Rays). Plenty of other franchises can — and will — make strong appeals to Sasaki once he is posted.
Unlike a traditional free agency, Sasaki’s comes with a financial ceiling, making him a bargain to all 30 teams. Sasaki’s talent is not in doubt to anyone, even as average fastball velocity this season dropped by two ticks, down to just above 97 mph. Sasaki showed plenty of ability to ramp it up to triple digits when desired, and he could soon develop into the hardest-throwing starter in MLB. His best pitch is still the splitter, whose movement profile makes it unique, even in an MLB where the split has come back into vogue in recent seasons.
Durability is the biggest question with Sasaki. His career high in innings is 129⅓, set in 2022. This year, he made 18 starts after a torn oblique and right arm soreness caused him to sit out about a quarter of his outings.
The recruitment of Sasaki comes amid a free agent period that is expected to move more quickly than recent years and adds a layer of intrigue into an offseason in which Sasaki would join free agent outfielder Juan Soto and right-hander Corbin Burnes as the most coveted players available — at a fraction of the price.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — Mookie Betts stubbed a toe on his left foot during an off-the-field incident and was out of the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ lineup Friday night for the opener of a highly anticipated weekend series against the New York Yankees.
Betts was scheduled to undergo X-rays at Dodger Stadium before first pitch. Until then, the team will hope for the best.
“It’s day-to-day right now,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So, that’s where we’re at.”
The incident — affecting Betts’ second toe — was believed to occur late Wednesday night, after the Dodgers returned from a six-game road trip through New York and Cleveland. Roberts didn’t find out until Betts called him Friday morning. He was vague on the details.
“I really don’t know,” Roberts said when asked how the injury occurred. “I think it was at home. It’s probably a dresser, nightstand, something like that. It’s just kind of an accident. I think that Mookie will be able to give more context, but that’s kind of from the training staff what I heard. So hopefully, it’s benign, it’s negative. Not sure, but I feel confident saying it’s day-to-day … but putting on a shoe today was difficult for him.”
Betts’ injury isn’t the Dodgers’ most serious at the moment. Late-inning reliever Evan Phillips, who was rehabbing a forearm injury, didn’t feel right playing catch earlier this week and will undergo Tommy John surgery next week, knocking him out for all of 2025 and most of 2026.
Phillips, 30, was released by the Baltimore Orioles in August 2021 and designated for assignment by the Tampa Bay Rays less than two weeks later. The Dodgers picked him up and turned him into a valuable late-game option. From 2022 to 2024, Phillips posted a 2.21 ERA and 0.92 WHIP, saved 44 games and struck out 206 batters in 179 regular-season innings.
But Phillips dealt with arm issues during last year’s postseason run and was left off the team’s World Series roster. He then went on the IL because of a rotator cuff strain in the middle of March, returned a month later, notched seven scoreless appearances, then went back on the IL on May 7 because of what the team called forearm discomfort. Platelet-rich-plasma injections did not take. Phillips never got better.
“As we started getting into it, it wasn’t really responding,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said. “We felt like this could be a possibility, so as he got deeper into the process and it wasn’t really getting better, the decision to do it was pretty much evident with our information.”
The loss of Phillips is coupled with the Dodgers having four other high-leverage relievers on the IL — Brusdar Graterol, Blake Treinen, Kirby Yates and Michael Kopech, all of whom are right-handed.
The Dodgers tried to backfill some of that depth by trading for former All-Star closer Alexis Diaz on Thursday. But Diaz, who struggled so badly this season that the Cincinnati Reds optioned him to Triple-A, will initially work out of the Dodgers’ spring training complex in Glendale, Ariz.
The Dodgers also have three starting pitchers — Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki — recovering from shoulder injuries, with Shohei Ohtani not expected to join the rotation until sometime after the All-Star break.
The lineup, at least, had been healthy. Until now.
Betts, 32, got off to a slow start but was still slashing .254/.338/.405 with 8 home runs and 5 stolen bases while slotting between the hot-hitting Ohtani and Freddie Freeman in the No. 2 spot. More notably, Betts had proven to be a capable major league shortstop after working during the offseason at the position.
But the toe injury could set him back, in much the same way a broken left hand robbed him of nearly two months in 2024.
At this point, Roberts said, “I don’t see it being long term.” But the Dodgers can’t say that definitively yet.
“We need to see the doctors and kind of get a better sense of it,” Gomes said. “It happened pretty recently, so it’ll take some time before we have a better understanding.”
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Don Van Natta Jr.
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Don Van Natta Jr.
ESPN Senior Writer
- Host and co-executive producer of the new ESPN series, “Backstory”
- Member of three Pulitzer Prize-winning teams for national, explanatory and public service journalism
- Author of three books, including New York Times best-selling “First Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers, and Cheaters from Taft to Bush”
- 24-year newspaper career at The New York Times and Miami Herald
FBI agents have reached out to major league baseball players about their knowledge of financial dealings related to a multibillion-dollar group-licensing firm started and owned, in part, by their union and the NFL Players Association, multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation told ESPN.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they had direct knowledge of law enforcement calls to at least three players involved in union leadership in recent days. The sources said the players are not targets of the investigation.
According to the sources, law enforcement agents inquired about money related to OneTeam Partners, established in 2019 by the NFLPA, MLBPA and a private-equity partner, RedBird Capital, and used to strike media deals and monetize athletes’ name, image and likeness.
In a statement, OneTeam said it is “aware of an ongoing investigation of allegations concerning our partners. We want to emphasize that OneTeam is not the subject of the investigation and has not been accused of any wrongdoing in any way. OneTeam is fully committed to cooperating with the investigation.”
Union executives said they have not been contacted by federal agents. “If the MLBPA is contacted by the government, we intend to cooperate fully with any investigation,” the MLBPA said Friday in a statement to ESPN. Player leadership has retained separate legal counsel outside of the union, sources said.
Multiple sources said the investigation is being run out of the Eastern District of New York, whose office is based in Brooklyn. A senior FBI official declined to comment Friday, and a spokesperson with the Eastern District declined to confirm the investigation.
The OneTeam partnership has become a major financial boon for both associations and has grown in valuation as it added the players’ unions of women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, and other sports and college athletes to its portfolio. OneTeam was valued at $1.9 billion in 2022, when RedBird Capital sold its 40% stake to three other investment firms.
The MLBPA’s and NFLPA’s relationships with OneTeam have come under scrutiny before. In late 2024, an anonymous unfair labor practices complaint was filed with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging “nepotism, corruption, mismanagement” at the MLBPA.
In December, the NFLPA’s outside counsel, Richard Smith, launched an audit into whether OneTeam had granted equity options to the executive directors of unions that the company represents, including the MLBPA. In its statement, OneTeam said it “remains steadfast in our commitment to following the best business practices, as has already been determined by the independent audit conducted earlier this year. … We remain dedicated to upholding the highest standards of integrity and transparency in all that we do.”
The NLRB complaint against the MLBPA alleges that the union’s executive director, Tony Clark, “improperly gave himself & other executives equity” in OneTeam and made “inadequate disclosures” about the partnership in annual union filings.
The union has previously denied the allegations against Clark, 52. He was hired as the MLBPA’s director of player relations after 15 seasons as a player and ascended to executive director following the death of his predecessor, Michael Weiner, in 2013. According to an LM-30 federal labor union disclosure he filed last year, Clark holds a seat on the OneTeam board.
Union finances have improved significantly under Clark’s leadership, due in part to proceeds from OneTeam. In 2020-24, the partnership paid the MLBPA nearly $160 million, according to the union’s annual LM-2 reports. In 2024, the union received $44.5 million from OneTeam.
The reports don’t detail how much of the OneTeam windfall was distributed to players. The MLBPA has more than $353 million in total assets, the highest fiscal-year-end figure in its history, according to the documents.
According to the MLBPA’s most recent filing, the union paid Clark $3.5 million in 2024.
The NFLPA’s audit of OneTeam was completed in March and found that the NFLPA’s role as part of OneTeam was “in compliance with best governance practices,” a source with firsthand knowledge said.
An NFLPA spokesperson declined comment Friday.
According to its LM-2s, OneTeam paid the NFLPA $422.8 million in the past five years. The NFLPA’s total assets are nearly $1.4 billion, with almost $240 million in cash, according to the union’s filings.
DeMaurice Smith, the former NFLPA leader who co-founded OneTeam with Clark, left the union in 2023 and was replaced on the partnership’s board by the union’s new executive director, Lloyd Howell Jr.
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