Roki Sasaki No Longer Throwing; No Timetable For Return

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.