November 10: The previously unspecified arm injury that caused Sasaki to mi s time in 2024 was reportedly a bout with shoulder fatigue, according to . The young right-handers recent injury history is just about the only thing that could give potential suitors pause this offseason, but such a relatively minor ailment is unlikely to do much damage to his market. November 9: is coming to MLB next season. His NPB team, the Chiba Lotte Marines, announced overnight ( ) that they intend to make their ace available via the posting system. They did not reveal a specific date when theyll open the posting window. Sasaki will be represented by Wa serman, Francys Romero. The announcement opens one of the top storylines of the offseason. Sasaki, who turned 23 last week, is the best pitcher in Japan. Hes one of the most talented pitchers on the planet. Its the second consecutive offseason in which MLB teams will compete for arguably NPBs best pitcher. Unlike the bidding, Sasakis earning power is capped at a few million dollars. MLB cla sifies players who sign out of a foreign league before they turn 25 as amateurs. Those players can only sign a minor league contract and are subject to a hard-capped bonus limit. Whichever team signs Sasaki is allowed to add him to the MLB roster by Opening Day he isnt going to start the season in Triple-A even though his first contract will Gus Varland Jersey be a minor league deal but he wont be able to sign for huge money. After he signs, Sasaki will be subject to the same six-year control window that applies to any player called up from the farm system. Hell play the next three seasons on roughly league minimum salaries before going through arbitration three times. Sasaki would not return to the open market until the 2030-31 offseason. He would be eligible to sign an extension during his team control window, but MLB has the ability to block a contract that it deems a circumvention of the bonus pool limits. Theres no set criteria for what might cause MLB to intervene, but its safe to say that Sasaki wont be signing a ma sive extension within a few weeks of agreeing to a modest signing bonus. Yamamoto waited until his 25th birthday to avoid the bonus limit. That freed him to sign with the Dodgers for $325MM, the largest guarantee for a pitcher in history. Sasaki didnt want to follow that path. He instead prioritized making the move to MLB as quickly as po sible, though that required the cooperation of the Marines. NPB players are not eligible for international free agency until theyve accrued nine years of service time. Sasaki has pitched at Japans highest level for four years. He unsucce sfully pushed for the Marines to post him for MLB teams last offseason. He gets his wish this time around. Theres been speculation that Sasakis contract mightve contained some kind of clause to force the teams hand. Whether out of contractual obligation or simply to honor the players wishes, the Marines will lose their ace for e sentially nothing. The posting agreement between MLB and Nippon Profe sional Baseball ties the NPB teams compensation to the value of the free agent contract. An MLB team signing a posted player pays a fee to the Japanese team on top of what goes to the player. The fee is a fixed amount calculated as 20% of a deals first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM, and 15% of further spending. Yamamotos deal came with a windfall for his former team, the Orix Buffaloes. The Dodgers paid the Buffaloes $50.625MM to release him from his contract. The Marines will get a fraction of that. If Sasaki signs for $10MM and theres a decent chance his bonus will land below that the team would receive a $2MM posting fee. The Marines lo s will be an MLB teams gain. Evaluators project Sasaki as a top-of-the-rotation starter. He can push into the triple digits with his fastball and has a potentially lethal splitter. His fastball lost a bit of life this past season, though the pitch still sits in the upper 90s. Marquees Lance Brozdowski reports ( ) that Sasaki averaged 97.1 MPH this year after sitting at 99 MPH in 23. Thats well above average for an MLB starter despite trending in the wrong direction. While the fastball velocity is eye-catching, evaluators suggest his low-90s splitter is his best pitch. He deploys a slider as his top breaking ball, and while thats not as well regarded as the fastball-splitter combination, its a potential above-average offering. broke down Sasakis pitch mix in greater detail this week. Writing for in 2023, Kyle Glaser projected Sasaki as an ace whod warrant the first overall pick if he were in the domestic amateur draft. Glaser ranked Sasaki as the most talented non-MLB player in the 23 World Baseball Cla sic, one spot ahead of Yamamoto. Sasaki struck out 11 hitters over 7 2/3 innings of four-run ball for Japans championship team. The 62 hurler has posted dominant numbers on a rate basis in NPB. He has a career 2.10 earned run average in nearly 400 innings. This years 2.35 ERA was the highest of any of his four seasons. In a relative down year, Sasaki punched out nearly 29% of batters faced against a manageable 7.1% walk percentage. To the extent theres a knock against Sasaki, its his workload. He has yet to reach 130 innings in any season. He was limited to 111 frames this year and mi sed time midseason due to an unspecified injury in his throwing arm. reports that he also suffered a torn oblique. The injury history is a concern when paired with his slight velocity dip, but its unlikely to di suade teams from an all-out recruitment. The upside of getting a potential top-of-the-rotation arm far outweighs the minimal cost. Pa san writes that the Marines have not settled on a date when theyll open the posting window. Whenever they officially post him, Sasaki has 45 days to decide where to sign. Its po sible thatll carry well into the 2025 calendar. Major League Baseballs signing periods for international amateurs run between January 15 and December 15 every year. Teams commit the vast majority of that money on 1/15, finalizing contracts that have been verbally agreed upon well in advance. Sasaki may prefer to wait until the opening of next years signing window. Teams already have verbal agreements with amateur players most of whom are signing out of Latin America at age 16 for their 2025 bonus window. Clubs could renege on some of those unofficial agreements to reallocate money for Sasaki. Teams are also allowed to trade for international signing bonus space up to a point. A team can acquire up to 75% of its initial bonus pool allotment. A club that knows it wont have a chance to land Sasaki may be willing to trade most of its bonus space to a team in pursuit of the Japanese star in exchange for other prospects or MLB help. In April, published a list of teams bonus allotments for the 25 signing period. The Reds, Tigers, Marlins, Brewers, Twins, As, Mariners and Rays have the largest pools at $7.5555MM each. If one of those teams acquired another 75% via trade and devoted the entire allotment to Sasaki, his maximum signing bonus would be around $13.22MM. Hell almost certainly sign for far le s. If Sasaki were prioritizing money, hed have waited until he turned 25 and sought a deal that rivaled or beat Yamamotos. As was the case with in 2017, Sasaki is leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table in the short term to get to MLB right away. All 30 teams will be on more or le s even footing financially. His free agency will be about teams competitive outlooks, pitching development plans and geographic preferences. Theres already ample speculation about the Dodgers as a landing spot. Theyre certainly well positioned from a competitive and geographic perspective. Financial might isnt a direct consideration for this free agent, though, and any team could fit Sasaki into the budget if he were genuinely open to all offers. Image courtesy of USA Today Sports. Jonathan Cannon Jersey