Roki Sasaki is coming to Major League Baseball.
He could be coming to San Diego.
The Padres would seem to have as good a chance as any to sign the 23-year-old Japanese pitching phenom. They might have a better chance than most.
Sasaki’s NPB team, the Chiba Lotte Marines, announced they will begin the process of posting Sasaki, which could lead to his playing in MLB in 2025.
Sasaki, whose splitter is his best pitch and whose fastball averages 97 mph, has long made it known he wants to play in the major leagues. But the Marines posting him now was something of a surprise in that it greatly limits how much they will receive as a posting fee.
Because he is not yet 25 and has not played six seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball, he will be considered an international free agent and have his signing bonus and salary limited in his initial contract. Had the Marines waited two years, Sasaki likely would have been able to command something akin to the 12-year, $325 million contract Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed with the Dodgers last offseason.
Japanese teams are entitled to a posting fee of 25% of the contract’s value.
The Dodgers are widely considered the favorite to land Sasaki given their vast resources and connections to Japan. They have already garnered a humongous following in Japan and created a tourism economy of people coming to Los Angeles to see Shohei Ohtani and, to a lesser extent, Yamamoto.
However, the fact that Sasaki’s bonus will have a cap means that every team is ostensibly in the running.
The Padres have scouted Sasaki extensively, and he is said to be close to Padres star Yu Darvish. The 38-year-old Darvish is the revered elder statesman of Japanese pitchers. He spent the entire 2023 World Baseball Classic with Team Japan despite pitching in just three games. He instead served as a sort of counselor to the team’s younger pitchers.
The Padres felt they were close to signing Ohtani in 2017 when he was posted at age 23. However, the National League did not have the designated hitter at the time, and Ohtani signed with the Angels for a $2.3 million bonus.
When Sasaki officially posts could be crucial.
Most teams, including the Padres, are out (or close to out) of international signing bonus pool money for 2024. That number will reset when the new international signing period begins Jan. 15.
The posting window is 45 days long, meaning that if Sasaki posts after Dec. 1, he would be eligible to be signed in next year’s signing period.
Teams are allotted various amounts in international signing pool money based on revenue and market size. Last year’s high was around $7 million. The Padres had $4.65 million. However, teams can make trades to acquire additional bonus money up to 60% above their initial allotment.