9:31pm: Roberts struck a much more optimistic tone regarding Sasaki after this evening’s game, as relayed by Ardaya. Roberts emphasized that Sasaki is “pain-free” and “already moving around” before going on to suggest that he should be able to resume building up his rehab process “soon.” While his tone regarding the young right-hander was significantly more optimistic than earlier in the day, he still provided few specifics regarding the righty’s status or when he’ll resume his throwing program.
3:41pm: Rookie right-hander Roki Sasaki is no longer throwing due to him not feeling “comfortable” with his shoulder when throwing at full intensity, manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic) this afternoon. Sasaki has been on the injured list due to a right shoulder impingement for just over a month, but it doesn’t sound as if he’s likely to return anytime soon. Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register adds that the Dodgers have no timeline for Sasaki’s return to throwing, while Ardaya suggests that Roberts’ comments indicated that Sasaki’s return to the mound in 2025 may not be guaranteed.
The news doesn’t change any short term plans for the Dodgers, as he wasn’t necessarily expected to return in the near future even before today’s news. MLB.com notes that Sasaki did not have an estimated return date and had not yet progressed beyond playing light catch as of last week. While pitching coach Mark Prior noted at that time (as relayed by Plunkett) that Sasaki was pain-free, he noted even then that the phenom hadn’t progressed enough to start ramping up the intensity of his fastball and that Sasaki must be “confident in his ability to throw the baseball” before his rehab can proceed. Roberts told reporters (including Benjamin Royer of the Los Angeles Times) that he would defer to Sasaki in describing the issue.
“As far as kind of the sensation,” Roberts said, as relayed by Royer. “It’s discomfort. I don’t think it’s pain, it’s tightness… whatever the adjective you want to use — I would rather him kind of say that.”
Regardless of the specific verbiage surrounding Sasaki’s stalled rehab, it’s clear he and the Dodgers were not seeing the sort of results they were looking for. As a result, the right-hander will be shut down from throwing for an indefinite period, though it appears that no additional testing on Sasaki’s shoulder is planned at this time. That suggests the Dodgers are at least confident they know what the problem is, but it’s still somewhat worrisome that the club could not say with confidence that Sasaki would return to the big league mound this season.
If Sasaki doesn’t return to the mound this year, it will be hard to view his rookie campaign as anything other than a disappointing one. The right-hander has made eight starts for the Dodgers, pitching to a 4.72 ERA (84 ERA+) in 34 1/3 innings of work across those outings. That’s not too far off from an average back-end starter at first glance, but Sasaki walked (22) nearly as many hitters as he struck out (24) and recorded an out in the sixth inning just twice while failing to record an out in the fifth inning four times. That combination of poor results, worse peripherals, and lack of volume made for a pretty bleak debut for Sasaki, particularly given his elite pedigree as one of the most talented young arms in the entire world.
Of course, the other side of that coin is that his talented hasn’t mysteriously disappeared. Eight starts is far too small of a sample to judge a pitcher on, and Sasaki’s bonafides as a potential top-of-the-rotation talent speak for themselves. He’s got some of the nastiest stuff in the entire sport, and posted a 2.10 ERA with a 32.7% strikeout rate across four NPB seasons. That includes an otherworldly 2023 where he pitched to a 1.78 ERA in 91 innings of work while striking out 39.1% of his opponents. Those huge strikeout numbers are particularly eye-popping when one considers the propensity towards contact found in NPB play, further adding to the pile of evidence that Sasaki’s future figures to be a very bright one.
All of that is why the Dodgers committed virtually their entire international bonus pool budget to signing him this winter in a sweepstakes that ultimately came down to Los Angeles, San Diego, and Toronto. While that investment hasn’t paid off yet, the young righty is still just 23 years old and will have plenty of opportunities to show off his talent in the future so long as he can get healthy enough to return to the mound. Perhaps that can happen as soon as later this season, but for now he’ll remain on the shelf alongside a bevy of other key Dodgers arms like Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Evan Phillips, and Brusdar Graterol. The Dodgers are currently relying on Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Clayton Kershaw, Dustin May, Ben Casparius, and the soon-to-be-activated Emmet Sheehan to hold down the fort while most of the club’s Opening Day rotation is unavailable.
I suspect this explains his drop in velocity in the 2nd half of his season last year in NPB. Another one under the knife???
Could be, but we have to know they’ve got all sorts of pictures of that shoulder already and haven’t found any reason for surgery so far.
That’s not true. We only know Sasaki hasn’t chosen to have surgery
There’s usually a conservative route that involves medication & physical therapy that a lot of players chose to try before consenting to surgery.
Seems like in saying it’s not true you actually agreed that it is true.
Incidentally, Sasaki remains on the 15-day IL but will almost certainly be moved to the 60-day when Sheehan is activated.
Actually no, he was probably presented with both options and chose the more conservative route to try get healthy & avoid being cut.
Actually, none of what you claim is backed up in any of the evidence.
Again you’re wrong. I never claimed anything. I said we only knew Sasaki hasn’t chosen to have surgery then pointed out the probable path he took after you claimed there was no reason surgery.
Good grief, I can read. Try some of it yourself.
Never questioned you’re reading ability, it’s the comprehension part.
When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Players dont get to make the decisions on their options. If he might need surgery and they arent doing it, it’s because the Dodgers dont want to do it.
Good – you can’t really believe that the player has no decision making in the surgery or no surgery part.
The team would typically elect sooner even –
Get the rehab clock started.
“Players dont get to make the decisions on their options.”
lmao, this is 100% false, and if any team tried to force a player to get surgery they didn’t want to get, their agent and the MLBPA would be all over it.
Then why would a team allow their player to get a 2nd opinion from a doctor outside the organization? They seem to be gotten quite a bit anytime a player is facing surgery.
Declining surgery required to be an effective player sounds like a great career move. I wonder why we don’t see it more often.
They can choose the surgeon to perform the surgery and get a second opinion. But if the team says they need to go under the knife to get right and they refuse, that might be a breach.
I’m not saying their personal medical teams arent involved, but I am saying if Roki isnt already under the knife it’s because the Dodgers dont believe its the best option. Roki’s opinion matters, but if the Dodgers doctors (among the best in the league) are telling him he needs it, thats the decision.
Nobody, player or team, is incentivized to prematurely operate on a player vs rehab. Even positive outcomes do not put the player back to 100% of what they were before.
IF that were the case, why wouldn’t he have stayed in NPB, possibly had the surgery and go through the rehab (~18 months), delaying his entry into MLB, and he’d be 25 y/o at that point and could be signed as a free agent? A 30 y/o Senga got 75M from NYM in 2023.
I know he doesn’t have a crystal ball, but if there were already signs.
Sounds like his shoulder is made of crystal.
Sounds more like a mental thing than physical
Agreed, it’s all mental. If anyone believes what the team is putting out, then you are one naive person. This is Ben Simmons all over again.
LOL the cope in this thread for dodger fans is cringey. Hes clearly cooked and needs surgery, its just a matter of when. Wait till it bites Ohtani again in September.
I don’t think anyone here is coping at all, bkbk.
well, nobody is coping other than bkbk, that is.
The cope? He’s a guy that has talent and the team paid relatively nothing for him. There isn’t a real need to rush anything because he’s under team control for quite a while.
And the fact that he was asking prospective teams what’s wrong with his fastball would indicate they and he understood the risks involved on both sides.
The amount of whining by some non dodgers fans from this off-season to present is just sad.
First they are ruining baseball. Now it’s ok because they are losing players to injury.
The envy is strong with this one.
What thread are you in? This is a Wendy’s sir.
Money well spent.
Uh yeah. Very little money was spent. So I reckon you are right, by accident. Sometimes trolling works against ya, right?
Japanese orchestrated Sasaki being a Dodger, same as they did with Ohtani and Yamamoto. There needs to be a limit to how many Japanese players each team can roster.
Uh, what?
I agree. The Koreans limit how many foreign players occupy a roster. Why would it be bad for MLB to do something similar?
bw,
How did “Japanese,” whatever that means orchestrate Sasaki being a Dodger?
Why would it be good?
hiflew: I guess the question is if you want to see the best players in the world compete against each other or if you’d rather see most of the best players compete against each other while some of those best sit out due to an arbitrary rule.
The vast majority of MLB as a whole is becoming more and more “foreign” players, less we forget that latin players are technically foreign. A lot of talent would be wasted with such a rule
I don’t believe he’s trying to limit foreign or Japanese players in MLB. He seems to be suggesting that MLB limit the number of foreign players on each team’s roster. Sasaki would still be pitching in MLB, but for another team. In that sense, we would see them competing against each other since they wouldn’t be concentrated on one team.
Nah, Miller. Just a draft like with domestic players.
Nah, no draft. Why limit their options like they do with domestic players? Let the free market rule.
You should worry more about the many more important things in this world that are orchestrated.
There is a limit of how many Japanese can be on a roster. It’s 40.
Like all those suspicious symphonies.
hiflew, now you’ve done it. The Now Generation will say that no Americans at all should be in MLB.
The Now Generation?
That’s quite the projection, letitbelowenstein.
The groovy people.
I am not saying MLB should adopt the rule. It was more of a roundabout way of knocking the KBO for doing it.
Xenophobia much?
KBO isn’t competing with the MLB. No other professional league is either.
The Japanese like to win, the like when the face of their nation here in America plays on a team that wins. As such, they instruct their top players to sign with Ohtani’s team.
Ohtani left the Angels for the same reason, loyalty to country over loyalty to team. The Japanese were a part of that decision and leaned heavily on Ohtani to choose LAD.
You can believe otherwise if you choose to, but it is important to the Japanese that Ohtani wins and they donwhat they can to support that.
there is no free market in a case like Roki Sasaki. Sasaki was going to get the same rookie deal no matter which team he chose to sign with. Same with Ohtani.
Why dont you tell your wife what to worry about and what not to worry about and keep your macademia nuts out of my jar.
I dont know the solution, can only see the problem.
The “Japanese” didn’t orchestrate anything. Ohtani, his family, and his team of people gave him input and he chose.
If not, then please explain how he ended up on the Angels in the first place. Or was that all part of his trajectory that the “Japanese” had laid out for him since high school?
Because the Angels had Trout, the best American player in baseball, and had a good team. They likely made a good deal with the Japanese at the time for Ohtani to play there. The Japanese weren’t happy with the team and its performance, they weren’t happy with ownership, and now Ohtani is a Dodger.
bw,
Unless you have had proof of all this, maybe try removing your tin foil hat.
Teams could make trades to increase their international bonus pool, and a couple of teams did exactly that. It wasn’t a complete free market, but all 30 teams at least notionally had the opportunity to sign Sasaki.
You, sir, are bonkers.
Nippon has a foreign player quota, it makes sense to me. You dont want a team stacked with Gaijin winning the league. It would dishonorable to the teams that are primarily Japanese.
Im not a conspiracy theorist, I’m a realist and have a little understanding of the Japanese culture, mostly through books and movies.
The Dodgers have clearly had their struggles this season, is it bad karma from underhanded dealings, I don’t know about karma, that is something that lacks logic in a way, spiritual worlds and luck and all of that, but my reasoning is sound in my take on the Japanese, Ohtani, the Dodgers. I could be wrong but I could be right, it’s simply a talking point.
Seek help
The Japanese government is using the Dodgers too filtrate our society to prepare for the coming invasion. /s
So is it “The Japanese” as in the entire Japanese population?
Or is it “The Japanese” as in the Japanese government?
Or maybe “The Japanese” as in the code name for an international assassin. Similar to “The Man from Toronto” for instance.
Or is it “The Japanese” as in “the voices in your head that say things that you write here”?
My question is how do we solve “the Japanese” problem?
Maybe he is “turning Japanese, I really think so!”
everybody who makes accusations exposes themselves in a way.
I didnt make any personal accusations.
I did make a reasonable assessment to my understanding of the way many things are done in this world. I dont care to be deluded to any other sort of reason than my own, sanity may be viewed as lunacy by a society that may or may not be off base. I am simply a human so I believe, surviving day to day. I try and get by and enjoy the baseball games, and the business side of it all.
The league has a lot of parity, last season, four teams from the AL Central made the playoffs. It was a great year. This season, a lot of clubs are in a position to make the playoffs. It’s hard to stack the deck in MLB, it doesnt stop teams from trying when there is an open door to do so.
No judgement of you from me. I just enjoy making outlandish jokes. I was going to go pretty dark with the “solve the Japanese problem” one but don’t want to get banned.
MLB is pretty hard to stack the deck. I tend to not want to limit things. How many Japanese players choose to stay in Japan if they can’t sign with a contender on the West Coast? Do we limit the amount of players from Latin countries allowed on teams? Do we require quotas on players based on ethnicity?
The problem was already solved. Back in my day (oh no I’m saying that now) international free agents weren’t subject to salary restrictions.
Under the current system there is very little incentive for a foreign free agent to sign with anyone other than a powerhouse as they’ll be paid the same whether they play for a winner or a loser. I pointed that out this would be a consequence multiple times when the MLBPA sold international free agents down the river, but then anyone affiliated with MLB listening to the opinion of a Canadian crack-filler might just be as negligent as not.
Under the old system if a team wanted to take risk and put up tens of millions of dollars to persuade, let’s say Rusney Castillo, to play for them they could. That allowed a free(r) market to distribute talent and risk more evenly.
Nope freedom bad we need quotas
A few million is nothing to the Dodgers especially, but really to any team.
It was a MiLB deal lol.
I think we’re getting a pretty good explanation of why Roki insisted on coming over now, even though it cost him some money. And it’s also advantage number a kajillion for teams like the Dodgers, who could take the risk and basically pay for rehab for a year or two in worst case.
Wow another one looks like he might bite the dust. What is in the water in LA.? I think they need a Tribal Medicine Man to take the curse off at this point.
Every team has trouble keeping pitchers healthy.
Astros are in a similar situation.
Didn’t AZ have 2 or 3 more done for season this week after Burnes?
The best laid plans of men are laughed at by the baseball gods.
Gotta listen to the body. Get well, Roki…i’m dying to see if all the hype is warranted.
Does anyone else find it interesting that mark prior heads the most injury prone pitching staff in the league?
I’ve noticed that too. Prior was a phenom bust after 4 seasons. Could never make a comeback. Though that’s why dodgers hired him.
Ha; little history lesson. Prior was phenomenal and lived up to the hype and suffered a fluky accident on the bases (back when pitchers actually hit and run), and wasn’t the same after. Altered his mechanics and then shoulder went boom.
R.D.:
There’s that……
But Friedman always had injured pitchers in Tampa Bay (and they still do…using the same system).
Don’t worry, the Dodgers are swimming in money and they’ll do what they did last year to win a WS: They’ll buy pitchers having good years at the deadline by taking on their salaries from teams out of contention that need to save the money and will accept any prospect.
–
THIS is why there needs to be total revenue sharing and a salary cap. MLB is simply a joke. It’s all about the large market teams. Even I can’t follow it much anymore. The lockout/work stoppage can’t come soon enough.
You will be missed.
Speak for yourself!
Sorry I didn’t flag the sarcasm properly.
RIP Samuel. I never knew you.
Guy’s cooked. Might be a mop up guy in the future for the White Sox or Marlins bullpen.
Stop this is an embarrassing take and I’m full of my own
@HEHEHATE
I’m sorry I insulted your favorite team.
I’m a pirates fan it’s even worse
If he got the tj before he comes over he’s not jumping ocean here. Shut him down this year and next immediately.
Since when do you do TJ on someone’s shoulder?
This is what happens when you try to but the pennant.
This is what happens when you try to but a post.
It was a minor league deal. No one was trying to buy anything, penistaylor
Oh, I see what you did there. You changed a letter, so now it says “penis.” Why has nobody thought to do that before?
The level of stupidity on much of this thread is staggering.
I swear, a wave of stupidity follows this dude wherever he goes. Check on how the Japanese media treated him.
People acting like the Dodgers just spent over $100 million on a bust. He’s 23 and his signing bonus was only $6.5 million. This is like if a first round pick struggled in his first taste of Major League action.
No kidding. If the Dodgers put him up for sale today for $6.5 million there would be 29 teams trying to buy.
Jays “dodged” a bullet
and the Jays continually dodge the trophy
Oh well, this is why a team with foresight lines up 12 or 13 potential starters to cover the season. Next man up.
Just tape a bunch of money around his arm.
That’s for Anthony Rendon, not Roki Sasaki.
Total financial commitment $7.26M.
Relax. He doesn’t have to be great. He can be a bust and Dodgers will lose nothing.
But the upside…..
He’s choosing to sob in the dugout instead of throw. What a baby.
You’re choosing to sob in the comments section
That’s probably because he spelled snake incorrectly.
Reading the articles from the far east, this is no surprise to the fans in Japan as they know for a fact that Sasaki has never pitched through an entire season even once in his career – always some excuse like this and that hurts.
He cost the Dodgers nothing except a roster spot so… No harm no foul
Padres dodged a bullet there.
He is cheap and has a lot of upside. Even if he misses the rest of the year I think he is with them for 6. If he comes back and pitches even halfway decent in a year or two he is still worth it making basically minimum wage. I still wish the Padres signed him. But the Dodgers worked a deal out on the down low like a year ago with his former club before he was posted, he had to put on the show of trying out for other clubs when it was already agreed on.
Dodge what, international bonus money? He could have tjs tomorrow and it’s a amazing signing for the future
At least they didn’t break the bank to bring him over here.
He definitely would have benefited from pitching in AAA for the first couple of months of the season.
I still think they should send him down and let him get adjusted once he’s healthy.
They hurt all their other pitchers.
There is something to be said in how Dodger pitchers get hurt frequently. Unless this is their way of saying that they are “hurt” and saving them for September and beyond. As an organization, they know they can never win the MLB season marathon, so they bank on a sprint, like the COVID “championship”.
It’s astounding to me how much the experts whiffed on Sasaki, who was a mega-rare 65-grade player as far as his scouting report on Fangraphs. He’s got two pitches and doesn’t command either one. His velocity is below the advertised rates. The media hype train grossly overstated every attribute. And I’m a Dodgers fan of more than 50 years. Honestly, he should be in Triple A.
It’s astounding to me how much better informed the bleacher bums are about this than the people whose jobs it is to know. To begin with, where do any of these deeply knowledgeable fans get the idea that Sasaki was signed as anything but an advanced prospect? Honestly, he obviously will be going back to triple-A at such a time as he is able to resume pitching.
It was never about now. It was the upside this guy had after the domination of Japan. Best case scenario, he’s unhittable. Worst case, he’s ineffective and cheap. Actually, he’s probably going to end up somewhere in between, which is just fine for a $7.2 million dollar investment.
Considering his age (23) and experience level, it is best to think of Sasaki as having been drafted out of college ball. The player also said that he chose the Dodgers as the team that could best help him refine his talent. So even he knows, even if a whole lot of fans haven’t caught on yet, that he didn’t come to MLB as a finished product.
With his prior accomplishments in Japan, they gave him a shot to be on the roster and grow into his talent with the major league coaches.
He wasn’t going to grow much in AAA, all things considered. At least with a few games under his belt, he knows some of what he needs to work on. And the team has seen him work at the major league level.
mental midget
Ever seen a midget? Most have big heads in proportion to their bodies. Does that make them, proportionately, more mental or less mental than a normally distributed person?
food for thought
Toronto dodged one on that flight……