It’s Roki Sasaki season.
Since news broke that the 23-year-old Japanese phenom is jumping stateside this winter, Sasaki has captured headlines and imaginations across the baseball world. A potential ace available for a relative pittance, the long-limbed hurler is firmly on the radar and within the budgets of all 30 teams.
Only time will unravel the mysteries of Sasaki’s incredibly complex free agency, so let’s spend some time investigating him as a player.
What type of pitcher is he, exactly? What pitches does Sasaki throw? How hard are they? Are there injury or durability concerns? Who are some loose comparisons already in MLB? What are reasonable expectations?
Let’s dive into the data and build a big-picture scouting report on this offseason’s most sought-after arm.
Sasaki has been a known commodity since his amateur days when he threw a fastball 101 mph, breaking Shohei Ohtani’s record for the hardest fastball ever thrown by a Japanese high schooler. Despite drawing interest from MLB teams right out of high school, Sasaki opted to play in NPB for the Chiba Lotte Marines who drafted him first overall in 2019.
The highly touted hurler sat out the 2020 season to rest his young arm, at his team’s behest. In 2021, he broke out as one of the best pitchers in Japan’s top league. The next season, Sasaki solidified himself as a game-changing force, tossing a perfect game and, at one point, retiring 52 consecutive batters. Then, he turned 21 years old. He pitched twice for Japan in the World Baseball Classic, starting the team’s semifinal game against Mexico in which he dominated for 3 2/3 innings before a few soft knocks and a three-run blast sullied his line.
Back in NPB, Sasaki continued his excellence in 2023 and 2024, but struggled to stay healthy, hucking 202 innings combined across the two seasons.
Though Sasaki logged 111 innings this past season and pitched to a 2.35 ERA, his stuff was unavoidably down. Most notably, his fastball clocked in at 1.9 mph slower on average compared to 2023. He also missed a batch of starts with an unspecified arm issue, an ailment that almost certainly played a role in his diminished velocity. But Sasaki was nails when it mattered, tossing eight shutout frames in his last outing of the year, a masterful nine-strikeout showing in the playoffs.
If Sasaki was a “normal” free agent, one without a contract ceiling, there would be significantly more debate and conversation about his lack of durability. Across four seasons in NPB, he averaged under 100 innings per season. In today’s game, with starting pitchers carrying fewer innings than ever before, that lack of bulk isn’t an issue, per se. But it’s worth noting that Sasaki hasn’t yet shouldered the load expected of a traditional ace.
Unfortunately, an arm surgery, be it elbow or shoulder, seems inevitable for Sasaki. Essentially every MLB starter who throws this hard, except for 2024 NL ROY favorite Paul Skenes, has gone under the knife at some point. Pitcher injuries are baked into the math at this point; whichever team signs Sasaki understands that reality. But because he’s going to be a bargain, his durability won’t be scrutinized as much as, say, Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s was a year ago.
Sasaki throws three pitches: A four-seam fastball, a splitter and a slider. He used to throw a curveball, but abandoned the offering in recent seasons.
In 2024, Sasaki threw the heater just under half the time, the splitter around 28 percent and the slider at 25 percent. That represented by far the highest slider usage of his NPB career. During his dominant 2022, Sasaki was fastball/splitter about 90% of the time. Once he comes stateside, the slider projects to become an even more important weapon against right-handed hitters. Still, there are precious few big league pitchers who throw their splitter this frequently.
Despite the recent dip in velocity, Sasaki still throws outrageously hard for a starter. His “diminished” 96.9 mph average would have been tied for seventh among MLB starters this past season. His 2023 average of 98.8 would have been just behind Skenes’ 98.9.
The uniqueness of Sasaki’s fastball is more than just pure heat. His heater boasts an extraordinarily rare combo of horizontal and vertical movement. In other words, Sasaki’s fastball stays “on plane” and darts in toward right-handed hitters.
A few reasonable comparisons currently in MLB are Skenes, Hunter Greene, Spencer Arrighetti and Jeff Hoffman. Skenes is the only current big league starter whose velocity compares to peak, pre-2024 Sasaki. The Pirates rookie also has tons of horizontal movement, but doesn’t quite have the same carry as Sasaki. Greene has the carry and the velocity, but less horizontal. Arrighetti has the shape but is in a lower velocity bracket. Hoffman is a reliever but his heater shows a similar, though less impressive, shape to Sasaki’s.
This is all to say: If Sasaki’s heater never returns to pre-2024 levels it’s still a freakish pitch. If he starts hitting 99 again … it’ll be Skenes-ian and beyond.
If Sasaki’s fastball is a unicorn, his splitter is a unicorn that breathes fire, speaks five languages and cooks a world-class risotto. There’s truly nothing like it.
Most splitters move down and toward the pitcher’s arm-side. The average right-handed MLB split this season was thrown at 86.5 miles per hour and had 10 inches of horizontal break. Taijuan Walker’s splitter is a solid example of what the pitch typically looks like.
According to data presented by Marquee Sports’ Lance Brozdowski, Sasaki’s splitter averaged just 3.1 inches of horizontal break in 2023 and 0.6 inches in 2024. In other words, the pitch typically moves straight down. Watching video of Sasaki’s performance against Mexico in the WBC, I noticed that he seems to vary the shape of the splitter depending on the handedness of the hitter he’s facing. Against lefties, the pitch showed more pure downward break with a smidge of armside run, while against righties, the pitch featured a noticeable amount of cut.
Here’s a splitter to LHH Alex Verdugo:
Here’s a splitter to RHH Randy Arozarena:
It is, quite simply, one of the most unique pitches in the world and will be a burden for big league hitters.
Sasaki’s slider is, all things considered, his least refined offering. He threw the pitch significantly more in 2024 and will likely continue that usage pattern once he gets to MLB. One would expect Sasaki to use the pitch almost exclusively against right-handed hitters as an offering that moves away from same-sided opponents. It’s a good pitch, but it’s one that will need to become more consistent.
Sasaki is a monster talent, one who could soon develop into a true soul-snatching Cy Young level pitcher. He offers a rare combination of current ability and upside. The only real total package comparison is Skenes, who debuted in MLB this past season and was almost immediately one of the best pitchers in the league (Skenes was recently announced as an NL Cy Young finalist).
The secondary metrics on Sasaki’s fastball are superior to Skenes, though Skenes is a much more physical presence. There will be bumps and significant injuries ahead for Sasaki, that’s just life as a pitcher, but there’s no question the data backs up the hype.
