If Roki Sasaki had waited two more years to leave Japan, the star right-hander could have created the kind of bidding war that led to his countryman, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, signing the largest contract ever given to a pitcher last winter – a massive 12-year, $325 million deal with the Dodgers.
At age 23, though, Sasaki’s move to MLB falls into the same category as an international amateur, limiting teams to signing him to a minor-league contract for international bonus pool money (between $5 million and $7 million).
Joel Wolfe was the agent who represented Yamamoto last year and is now walking Sasaki through his free agency this winter. Sasaki wasn’t motivated by how much money he would make in making the jump to MLB, Wolfe said.
“Roki is by no means a finished product. He knows it and the teams know it. He is incredibly talented. We all know that,” Wolfe said Monday, offering a limited update on Sasaki’s signing process. “But he is a guy that wants to be great. He’s not coming here to be rich or to get a huge contract. He wants to be great. He wants to be one of the greatest ever. I see that now and he has articulated it.
“To be that he knows he has to challenge himself. … I’m not speaking for Roki. I’m speaking my own opinion that in order to take it to another level he (realized he) had to come here and play against the best players every day and tap into all the resources that major league teams have to help him become one of the best pitchers not just to come out of NPB but in Major League Baseball. That’s what he wants. That’s why he came.”
Sasaki was officially posted by his NPB team, the Chiba Lotte Marines, on Dec. 10. At that time, Wolfe sent a letter to all 30 MLB teams inviting them to submit presentations to Sasaki.
Twenty teams took advantage of that invitation, Wolfe said.
“I have to say while the quality and the uniqueness varied, it was really something,” Wolfe said. “There were highly in-depth power-point presentations, short films, some teams made actual books.”
A number of teams had in-person meetings at Wolfe’s office in Los Angeles. The meetings were limited to two hours each and Sasaki did not travel to any team’s stadium or city. By his request, no current players were present at the meetings – though some did appear in the videos submitted. So any recruiting pitches by Shohei Ohtani and Yamamoto for the Dodgers, Yu Darvish for the Padres or Shota Imanaga and Seiya Suzuki for the Chicago Cubs would not have been made face to face.
Those teams were given an unspecified “homework assignment” by Sasaki so he could get an idea “how they can analyze and communicate information with him.”
Wolfe would not specify how many teams have had in-person meetings with Sasaki since he was posted but a source confirmed the Dodgers were one of them. Five other teams have been reported as having had meetings with Sasaki – the New York Mets, New York Yankees, Cubs, Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants.
Sasaki is currently in Japan, Wolfe said. But the expectation is for him to return to the United States for a second round of meetings with a limited number of teams in January.
“He is definitely driving the ship and calling the shots,” Wolfe said.
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Sasaki cannot sign before Jan. 15, when the international signing period begins, but he has to sign before Jan. 24 when his posting window closes. Wolfe said he doesn’t expect Sasaki’s decision to come immediately after Jan. 15.
“This is a very unique process and a very unique player,” Wolfe said.
“We’ve had numerous conversations about team location, market size, team success – things like that. He doesn’t seem to look at it in the typical way that other players do. He has a more long-term, global view of things. I believe Roki is also very interested in the pitching development and how a team is going to help him get better both in the near future and over the course of his career.”
The Dodgers are considered the frontrunners to sign Sasaki with the Padres seen as their main competition. Earlier this month, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman called signing Sasaki “a major priority.”