With the DeNA BayStars winning the Japan Series last week, the NPB offseason is officially underway, and Samurai Japan’s WBSC Premier12 tournament run will begin on Wednesday. But the elephant in the room for almost an entire year has been the status of Lotte Marines fireballing phenom Roki Sasaki. And on Saturday, we learned his fate. The team announced on Twitter/X that the 23-year-old will be allowed to make a move to MLB via the posting system. How did this happen, and what’s next? Let’s dig in.
Last offseason, reports emerged that Roki Sasaki had asked the Lotte Marines to post him to MLB. Under the current Japanese posting system, players under the age of 25 are subject to MLB international bonus pool money restrictions, meaning Sasaki nor Lotte would earn true market value (Sasaki with his MLB contract, Lotte with the subsequent posting fee). As a result, the team rejected his posting request…at least, that’s what many in the media assumed at the time. Nobody knows what went on behind the scenes for sure.
Fast forward to 2024, the team has agreed to prematurely post Sasaki to MLB, presenting it as a goodwill gesture to their superstar despite seemingly gaining nothing from it. So what changed? If this scenario is true, it would imply Lotte is honoring a gentleman’s agreement from 2019, when Sasaki joined the team via the NPB Draft. However, the more likely situation, as journalist Jim Allen has written extensively, is that Sasaki and his agent had worked a concrete, legally binding clause into his contract to force the team’s hand. In other words, Sasaki served his five years with the club that was originally agreed upon, and the team had no choice but to post him.
Why would Lotte agree to such a clause in 2019? While clubs typically have the upper hand at the negotiation table, players have the ultimate leverage after being drafted. NPB does not award compensation picks for unsigned draftees. As a result, players (especially top prospects who already have an interest in playing overseas) can try to negotiate for many concessions. If the team rejects these demands, they risk the player walking away, wasting their top pick. In this case, Sasaki could have threatened to sit out a year to re-enter the draft, go to college in the United States, or sign a minor league deal with an MLB team straight out of high school if Lotte did not agree to an early posting. The implications for the future of NPB and the posting system are difficult to say at this time, but it’s fair to say that a Pandora’s box has been opened as far as MLB teams potentially poaching more young Japanese talent before they make their mark in NPB.
As for Sasaki, the wunderkind is following a Shohei Ohtani-esque path, giving up hundreds of millions of dollars in the short term for an opportunity to follow his dreams and fast-track his way to the Big Leagues as quickly as possible. While he only threw 394.2 innings in NPB and failed to stay healthy for a full season, his ability speaks for itself. He threw 17 consecutive perfect innings in 2022, including a 19-strikeout perfect game, and leaves Japan with a career 2.10 ERA, 1.78 FIP, 32.7 K%, and 5.7 BB%. His average fastball velocity fell from 99 to 97 mph this season but he became more comfortable throwing his slider, which Yu Darvish helped him develop at the WBC, giving him a nasty three-pitch mix with the splitter as his best weapon. At his best, he has the talent to be a top-five arm in the world. Many believe he will land with the Los Angeles Dodgers or San Diego Padres.
- NPB Standings
- Central League Hitting Leaders
- Central League Pitching Leaders
- Pacific League Hitting Leaders
- Pacific League Pitching Leaders
- Yuri’s NPB Pitcher Rankings
- Yakyu Cosmopolitan’s Website
