DALLAS — The baseball world is captivated by Roki Sasaki and where he’ll play in 2024. But Sasaki, it seems, is just as unsure as everyone else.
Back in November, news broke that the 23-year-old Japanese phenomenon was readying himself for a stateside journey. Sasaki’s NPB team, the Chiba Lotte Marines, were expected to “post” the much-ballyhooed hurler, making him available and affordable as a free agent to all 30 MLB teams. Because Sasaki is under 25 years old, he is subject to restrictions governing international amateur players. As a result, the flame-throwing right-hander will command a signing bonus no larger than around $7.5 million. That abnormal decision created a maelstrom of mystery around Sasaki, who forwent hundreds of millions of dollars by making the leap now instead of two seasons from now.
Until Sasaki’s official posting on Tuesday, very little information had emerged about the talented youngster, his preferences, his thought process and his path forward. But at the winter meetings, atop a makeshift podium in a comically enormous ballroom at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, offered the public a cornucopia of clarity.
The impromptu Q&A session was a sight to behold, as chaotic an information gathering as you’ll see. Reporters sardined themselves together in a crescent eight rows deep, their recording devices extended toward the soft-spoken agent. Wolfe swayed uncomfortably in the center of the madness, towering over the media in a navy jacket, charcoal slacks and a pair of Nike Dunks. He spoke slowly, with an almost solemn seriousness. Over the course of 20 minutes, Wolfe fielded a barrage of inquiries about his client.
The biggest takeaway? Even Wolfe isn’t sure yet what Sasaki wants.
Asked what’s important to Sasaki in selecting a team, Wolfe was either purposefully vague or refreshingly honest. “I’m not entirely sure yet,” he said. “I’ve known Roki for a little over two years now, and as I’ve gotten to know him, it’s been a little bit difficult to really ascertain what his decision-making process would be for choosing a team because his focus has predominantly been on whether or not he’s going to be able to post.”
Here’s what else we learned from Wolfe about this winter’s most sought-after pitcher.
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Exactly what pushed Sasaki to leave Japan prematurely was, far and away, the biggest and most compelling unknown about his free agency. Only one other Japanese player in recent memory, three-time MVP Shohei Ohtani, took a similar path. But at the time of his posting, Ohtani had already established himself as one of the most accomplished players in NPB. Sasaki, while immensely talented, delivered four tantalizing but incomplete seasons in his native country.
So why now? Why leave so much money on the table? It has to do with Sasaki’s harrowing life story.
Sasaki was just 9 years old in 2011 when the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami ravaged eastern Japan. His father and two of his grandparents were killed in the tragedy. Understandably, Wolfe mentioned, it’s not something his client talks about often, though it certainly helps inform his perspective.
“There are no absolutes in baseball,” Wolfe told the throngs of reporters, “and through Roki Sasaki’s eyes, there are no absolutes in life. For the first time in his life, Sasaki will control his own future. Now he just has to decide what that will entail.”
Pitching in MLB has always been Sasaki’s dream; it’s not a given that the opportunity to realize that dream will still exist in a few years.
Sasaki and his representatives at CAA will spend the rest of December meeting with MLB teams. Those conversations will take place in person, at a central location, likely on the west coast. Clubs will send delegations to Sasaki and Wolfe, to avoid the complicated logistics of a frenzied national tour. After the first round of meetings, during which he’ll narrow down the suitors, Sasaki might embark on visits to the cities of his finalists.
“We’re going to leave it open-ended, depending on how the first round of meetings go,” Wolfe explained.
Over the holidays, Sasaki will return to Japan before coming back to the U.S. to finalize the process. Officially, he has to wait to sign until Jan. 15, when the next international signing period begins, but news about his final selection could break unofficially before then.
Sasaki must, however, sign with a team before the Jan. 24 cutoff.
Considering the long road ahead, a conclusion before the new year feels extraordinarily unlikely. This will take time, but the flow of information about Sasaki’s preferences and interactions with teams should pick up in the meantime.
Wolfe was surprisingly forthcoming and blunt about this topic. Sasaki, who has been extremely famous in Japan since his high school days, entered Japanese pro ball with a coliseum of hype. But a smattering of injuries during his tenure with Chiba limited him to fewer than 400 career NPB innings. As a result, many members of the Japanese media contingent in Japan have criticized Sasaki’s choice to leave NPB having not reached the heights of other MLB-bound players.
“Roki’s had a tough go of it the last couple of years,” said Wolfe, who represents several other Japanese MLB stars, including Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Seiya Suzuki, Kodai Senga and Yu Darvish. “The media in Japan has been very tough on him, and he’s not had a great time with it.”
Whether that dynamic pushes Sasaki to a smaller market in the U.S. remains to be seen, but Wolfe did say he could envision how such a setting might be beneficial to his client. It was far from definitive, but certainly a more honest than usual assessment of a complicated situation.
Various local writers tried to wring from Wolfe droplets of information about where his client might prefer to play. But the agent played it straight, refusing to either eliminate or elevate any option over another. While many Japanese players have voiced an interest in playing on the west coast because of its proximity to home, Wolfe admitted that Sasaki has never indicated such a preference to him. Wolfe said something similar about market size, proclaiming that he could envision Sasaki succeeding in a big city or a small one.
“I think about five or 10 years ago, that was something that maybe they weighed a little bit more, but now you can fly direct from Japan to most of the major cities in the U.S.,” he said. “It’s not really that much of an issue anymore.”
Wolfe also claimed that he doesn’t know whether Sasaki prefers to join a team with an established Japanese player or command more of the spotlight as his team’s only Japanese player.
So while many around the game view the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers as the front-runners for Sasaki, Wolfe was careful about not tipping his hand.
Congratulations, Pirates fans, you’re technically still in the mix.
