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Roki Sasaki

Dodgers Notes: Sasaki, Glasnow, Phillips

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The Dodgers’ pitching staff is the most injured in the sport, as has become common for Los Angeles. With three of their five Opening Day starters currently on the injured list, L.A. has been using secondary choices in its rotation in recent weeks. That’s still a strong group, as staff ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto is joined by a solid group despite those injuries: Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin, Clayton Kershaw, and Landon Knack are all pitchers most teams would be happy to have on staff.

Even so, Dodgers fans are surely hoping for the club’s other rotation arms to get healthy soon, particularly given the fact that May’s 4.09 ERA (96 ERA+) is the best of the group aside from Yamamoto. They received some good news on that front today, as manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic) that right-hander Roki Sasaki is set to start a throwing progression at some point this coming week. It’s the first sign of the 23-year-old phenom beginning to ramp back up toward a return since he was placed on the shelf with a right shoulder impingement two weeks ago.

It’s encouraging news regarding Sasaki’s status, but fans shouldn’t expect him back on the mound in the near future. Even after Sasaki resumes throwing, it will be some time before he begins throwing bullpen sessions and facing hitters. A rehab assignment of some length is sure to follow after those boxes are checked, and that could leave Sasaki several weeks away from a return to action yet. Still, the fact that the youngster appears likely to return before the first half of the season comes to a close is certainly encouraging. The Dodgers are surely hoping that Sasaki’s current stay on the injured list is giving him time to get on track before his return, as well. After all, the righty has struggled to this point in his big league career with a 4.72 ERA and 6.13 FIP across eight starts and a worrying 14.3% walk rate.

If Sasaki’s ramp back up to big league readiness may end up being as much about getting him right as it is about getting him healthy, the same could arguably be said about right-hander Tyler Glasnow. The 31-year-old had an uncharacteristic 4.50 ERA with a 5.41 FIP in 18 innings of work across his first five starts of the season before getting shelved with inflammation in his right shoulder near the end of April, but the good news is that he’s making good progress towards a return. MLB.com notes that Glasnow threw his first bullpen session since going on the shelf on Friday. The session lasted less than 20 pitches, but Roberts suggested that Glasnow came out of it feeling “great.”

That suggests that Glasnow is a bit ahead of Sasaki in his rehab process. The veteran righty will likely throw more bullpen sessions with higher pitch counts before progressing to facing live hitters and an eventual rehab assignment, but this weekend’s first step was nonetheless an important one. Glasnow would be a huge boost to the Dodgers’ rotation if he comes back looking anything like he did last year, when he pitched to a 3.49 ERA with a 2.91 FIP across 22 starts during his first year in Los Angeles.

Positive as those updates regarding the rotation might be, however, the Dodgers also revealed some worrying news regarding the status of right-hander Evan Phillips today. The reliever was shelved earlier this month due to what was termed “discomfort” in his right forearm at the time, and while that injury was initially believed to be minor Roberts told reporters (including Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times) that Phillips is still feeling discomfort and has yet to resume throwing three weeks later. Harris went on to note that Roberts acknowledged the injury is “starting to get a little concerning,” though he added that the club is still “hoping for the best.”

Phillips is sorely missed in a bullpen that is also without Kirby Yates, Blake Treinen, Michael Kopech, and Brusdar Graterol among others. The righty was removed from Los Angeles’s closer job last year but has been nothing but excellent during his time with the Dodgers overall, posting a 2.22 ERA in 195 innings of work since the club acquired him back in 2021. That includes seven scoreless appearances this season where he struck out 27.3% of opponents while issuing walks at just a 9.1% clip.

Dodgers Activate Clayton Kershaw

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May 17: The Dodgers have activated Kershaw, as expected. Right-hander Ryan Loutos was optioned to the minor leagues to make room for Kershaw on the active roster, while southpaw Blake Snell was transferred to the 60-day IL to make room on the 40-man roster. Given that Snell has already been on the shelf for nearly six weeks and has only recently resumed a throwing program, Snell’s transfer is largely a procedural move that does not necessarily indicate a change in his timetable for return.

May 13: Clayton Kershaw will make his season debut against the Angels on Saturday, manager Dave Roberts tells reporters (including David Vassegh of 570 Sports). The Dodgers will need to activate him from the 60-day injured list.

Kershaw opened the season on the 60-day IL as he recovers from offseason surgeries on his left knee and left foot. He has made five minor league rehab starts going back to April 16. He’s combined for a 2.57 ERA across 21 innings. Kershaw reached six innings in an appearance for the team’s complex affiliate on May 6. He threw four frames and 57 pitches during his most recent start for Triple-A Oklahoma City on Sunday.

The future Hall of Famer signed an incentive-laden contract for what will be his 18th MLB season. While he’s only guaranteed $7.5MM, the deal contains $8.5MM in incentives depending on his workload. He’d unlock a $1MM bonus for making his 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th starts. The deal also contains roster bonuses. He’ll collect an additional $2.5MM for reaching 30 days on the active roster, $1MM for 60 days, and $1MM for 90 days.

Kershaw was limited to seven starts last season. He missed the first few months recovering from the shoulder procedure that he’d undergone late in 2023. Bone spurs in his foot sent him back to the injured list at the end of August. Kershaw wasn’t able to return for the World Series run. He finished the year with a 4.50 ERA across 30 innings.

In other Dodger rotation news, Roberts said that Roki Sasaki reported some arm soreness coming out of his start on Friday (via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic). The team has not decided whether it’ll require an IL stint. Sasaki has gotten out to a rocky start to his MLB career. He has only completed six innings in one of his first eight outings. He has yet to record more than four strikeouts in a game and carries a 4.72 ERA with very poor strikeout and walk rates.

If Sasaki avoids the IL, Kershaw could push the Dodgers back to a six-man rotation. Injuries to Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow have dropped them to a five-man staff comprising Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin, Sasaki, and Landon Knack.

Dodgers Notes: Rushing, Sasaki, Snell, Glasnow

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The Dodgers have gotten top catching prospect Dalton Rushing looks at first base and in the corner outfield to expand his defensive portfolio, but Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic reports that at least for the time being, Rushing will serve only as a catcher in the majors. The 24-year-old is set to make his MLB debut tonight when catching a bullpen game, and the plan is for him to catch twice a week while also participating in daily game-planning meetings, catching bullpen sessions and serving as a true understudy to veteran backstop Will Smith.

Rushing, the No. 40 overall draft pick in 2022, has torched Triple-A pitching dating back to 2024. He’s tallied 301 plate appearances there and turned in a .289/.409/.512 batting line, taking walks in more than 15% of his plate appearances along the way. Perhaps down the road, Rushing could see time at other positions if his bat again forces the team’s hand, but manager Dave Roberts likened today’s promotion to that of Smith several years ago.

“We did it with Will before his rookie year (when we) brought him up in September to get assimilated with how we do things on the game-planning stuff,” said the skipper. “In one sense, to not take at-bats every day, you could see some downside. But I think that having (him) here in this environment, around our pitchers, around our coaches … I think just net sum was more positive.”

Rushing will likely get the nod behind the dish tonight in a bullpen game that would have gone to right-hander Roki Sasaki were it not for a trip to the 15-day injured list due to a shoulder impingement. ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez writes that Sasaki’s shoulder discomfort began earlier this month. The right-hander himself described the issue as not necessarily painful, but limited mobility in his shoulder. Even in the absence of strict pain, sub-optimal range of motion in the shoulder is an obvious detriment to any pitcher’s ability on the mound.

The onset of the discomfort appears particularly evident when looking at Sasaki’s game log. He averaged 96.4 mph on his heater through his first six starts of the season but sat at 94.8 mph in each of his two most recent turns. His splitter had a similar drop, going from 85.2 mph on average to 84 mph. Even prior to his recent velo dip, Sasaki wasn’t throwing as hard as he did in Japan. Still, the results in those two most recent outings weren’t pretty — eight runs on 11 hits and four walks with only four strikeouts in nine innings pitched — and the Dodgers will now give that ailing shoulder a break.

A firm timetable for Sasaki’s absence isn’t yet established. Gonzalez notes that at least for now, Sasaki isn’t expected to receive any kind of injection to treat the shoulder. He’ll be down for a to-be-determined period, but the Dodgers will be back to a five-man rotation in short order, with Clayton Kershaw’s return set for this weekend.

Also on the mend are top starters Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. Jack Harris of the L.A. Times reports that Snell was throwing in the outfield yesterday and is again moving forward with his throwing program after it was pushed back last week. Gonzalez adds that Glasnow, too, has been cleared to resume throwing. Both former All-Stars will need to progress through several milestones and then head out on a minor league rehab assignment, so a return for either isn’t exactly just around the corner — but it’s nevertheless encouraging to hear that both are trending in the right direction.

Dodgers Place Roki Sasaki On Injured List

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The Dodgers announced they’ve placed Roki Sasaki on the 15-day injured list with a shoulder impingement. Reliever J.P. Feyereisen was recalled from Triple-A Oklahoma City to fill the vacated roster spot.

Manager Dave Roberts said earlier this evening that Sasaki reported some arm discomfort after his start on Friday. The Diamondbacks tagged him for five runs on as many hits and a pair of walks over four innings. Sasaki didn’t record a single strikeout and only induced four whiffs. He now carries a 4.72 earned run average through his first eight big league starts. He has fanned only 15.6% of opponents while issuing walks at an untenable 14.3% rate.

It’s clearly not the manner in which Sasaki envisioned beginning his major league tenure. Of the 133 pitchers who have logged at least 30 innings, only San Diego’s Randy Vásquez has a worse strikeout/walk rate difference. The 23-year-old Sasaki was dominant over his four seasons in NPB, posting a 2.10 ERA with a near-33% strikeout rate. He remains one of the sport’s most talented young pitchers even though his stateside debut hasn’t gone as planned so far.

Sasaki’s injury history was the only knock against his time in Japan. He never reached 130 innings in an NPB season. He was limited to 18 starts and 111 frames last season. Sasaki missed time with an oblique tear and reportedly battled shoulder fatigue in 2024. The Dodgers haven’t provided a timeline for his return.

Roberts said tonight that Clayton Kershaw will return to the rotation on Saturday. He’ll join Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin and Landon Knack in the starting five. Sasaki was scheduled to take the ball on Thursday, though the Dodgers could turn to May on four days rest after the team’s off day yesterday. Gonsolin would also be on four days rest for Friday’s start before Kershaw’s activation.

Dodgers Add Roki Sasaki To 40-Man Roster

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The Dodgers have finalized their roster in advance of their Opening Day tilt with the Cubs. Los Angeles officially added Roki Sasaki to their 40-man roster. They also selected the contract of veteran reliever Luis García, who had been in camp as a non-roster invitee.

Brusdar Graterol and Michael Grove were placed on the 60-day injured list to create the necessary 40-man openings. Grove underwent season-ending shoulder surgery last week. Graterol is recovering from a labrum procedure in his own shoulder and will not be back until the second half of the season at the earliest.

Los Angeles placed an additional seven pitchers on the 15-day IL: Tony Gonsolin (back tightness), Edgardo Henriquez (left foot fracture), Kyle Hurt (rehabbing Tommy John surgery),  Clayton Kershaw (rehabbing toe surgery), Michael Kopech (shoulder impingement), Evan Phillips (rehabbing rotator cuff strain), and Emmet Sheehan (rehabbing Tommy John surgery). With Gavin Stone and River Ryan landing on the 60-day IL during Spring Training, the Dodgers have 11 pitchers beginning the season on the injured list. Each of Kershaw, Sheehan, Hurt and potentially Henriquez figure to land on the 60-day IL eventually.

By and large, these are procedural moves. The only real decision is their call to carry García in the bullpen. The hard-throwing righty inked a minor league deal that came with a $1.5MM base salary if he made the team. He didn’t have a great camp, allowing three runs with a trio of strikeouts across 5 1/3 innings. The Dodgers were nevertheless encouraged enough by his stuff to add him to Dave Roberts’ middle relief group.

García divided his 2024 season between the Angels and Red Sox. The 38-year-old pitched reasonably well for the Halos, working to a 3.71 earned run average through 43 2/3 innings. He posted roughly average strikeout (22%) and walk (7.7%) rates with a strong 51.2% ground-ball percentage. Things went sharply downhill in Boston. García missed a couple weeks late in the season with elbow inflammation. He was tagged for 15 runs across 15 1/3 innings in a Sox uniform. That pushed his season ERA to an unimpressive 4.88 mark through 59 frames.

Sasaki was not previously on the 40-man roster as a quirk of the international amateur system. The same age restriction that capped his signing bonus to a modest $6.5MM also limited him to signing a minor league contract. The Dodgers were never going to send him to Triple-A, of course, but he was technically in Spring Training as a non-roster invitee. Sasaki took the ball twice in exhibition play. He fired seven scoreless innings with seven strikeouts and three walks.

The touted 23-year-old righty will make his major league debut on Wednesday night in his home country (3:10 a.m. Pacific in the U.S.). He’ll go opposite Justin Steele in the second game of the season. It’ll be a matchup of Japanese-born starters Tuesday night at the Tokyo Dome, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto taking the ball against Shota Imanaga.

Stan Kasten, David Rubenstein Speak On MLB’s Economics

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The Dodgers introduced their latest big-ticket free agent signee on Thursday. Team president Stan Kasten was among those in attendance at the press conference to celebrate Tanner Scott joining the club on a four-year free agent deal.

Asked about the Dodgers’ second consecutive monster offseason, Kasten defended the organization’s spending. “This is really good for baseball. I have no question about it,” he told reporters (link via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic). Kasten pointed out that MLB’s playoff volatility reduces the chance for any individual team to post a dynastic run of World Series titles. He argued that the Dodgers’ roster-building approach should energize both their own fanbase and those of other clubs who want to see them fail.

“On the entertainment side, which is what we are, it’s really good when there’s one beloved team by their fans who come out in record numbers, leading all of baseball in attendance, while that same team can be hated and lead baseball in road attendance. That’s a win-win for baseball,” Kasten said.

Needless to say, not everyone outside Los Angeles shares that opinion. ESPN’s Jeff Passan published a lengthy column looking at both the Dodgers’ successful Roki Sasaki pursuit and their overall success in both free agency and internal player development. Unsurprisingly, the Dodgers have gotten backlash not only from opposing fans but from rival front offices. That’s in response to both L.A.’s overall willingness to spend and the level of deferrals they’ve included in most of those contracts. Readers are encouraged to check out Passan’s piece in full.

Cot’s Baseball Contracts projects the Dodgers for a luxury tax payroll around $375MM. The Phillies have the second-highest layout at roughly $308MM. The Yankees are the only other team above $300MM by that estimate. The gap between the Dodgers and the 30th-ranked Marlins is almost $300MM.

Passan writes that the payroll disparity (plus the $765MM guarantee which Juan Soto secured from the Mets) has led to a “rekindling” of talks amongst owners who hope for the implementation of a salary cap. New Orioles owner David Rubenstein, who purchased the franchise from the Angelos family last spring, is among those in support.

“I wish it would be the case that we would have a salary cap in baseball the way other sports do, and maybe eventually we will, but we don’t have that now,” Rubenstein told Yahoo Finance at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos. “I suspect we’ll probably have something closer to (the salary caps and floors) the NFL and the NBA have, but there’s no guarantee of that.”

A cap, of course, would need to be collectively bargained. Major League Baseball’s owners have attempted to implement a cap in many previous CBA negotiations. The MLB Players Association has refused to budge on that issue, as it remains strongly opposed to putting fixed limits on players’ earning power. The luxury tax is designed to curtail spending at the top of the market. It has indeed served as a deterrent for some big-market franchises but obviously is a barrier which teams are free to cross if ownership is willing.

“I think the big city teams have some advantages. Now, in Los Angeles, they have another advantage,” Rubenstein added. “They have Japanese players, [a] number of them that they got like Shohei, and people in Japan really love watching the Dodgers, and they sell a lot of merchandise in Japan for Dodgers players.”

A salary cap would not have directly influenced the Sasaki signing. His earning power was hard-capped by MLB’s international signing limit for amateurs. Sasaki qualified because he hasn’t turned 25. He signed for a $6.5MM bonus that is hundreds of millions of dollars below what he would’ve commanded had he been a true free agent. The Dodgers’ spending may have indirectly influenced his decision — he’s joining the defending champions on a roster that already had a pair of Japanese superstars in Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto — but the geographic and endorsement reasons for his signing are outside the purview of a cap.

Nevertheless, it’s clear that many fans are frustrated by how this offseason has transpired. More than two-thirds of respondents to a recent MLBTR poll indicated they hoped for a salary cap to be implemented during the next round of collective bargaining, which will take place after the 2026 season. Roughly half of respondents said they’d be willing to sacrifice the entire ’27 season to a work stoppage if it meant the league could successfully leverage the players union into agreeing to a cap. MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald and Tim Dierkes discussed the situation in greater detail on this week’s edition of our podcast.

Deferrals are another source of agitation for many fans, particularly after Ohtani’s deal that deferred $680MM of his $700MM guarantee. The Dodgers are neither the first team nor the only current club to defer significant money. The Nationals had deferrals on a few deals (e.g. Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin) that were crucial to their 2019 World Series win. The Blue Jays deferred around two-thirds of the salary on Anthony Santander’s contract just this week. Still, the Dodgers have deferred a much greater amount of money than anyone else within the past year-plus. Ohtani, Will Smith, Blake Snell, Teoscar Hernández, Tommy Edman and Tanner Scott have all deferred payments on recent contracts.

As MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes covered shortly after the Ohtani signing, the deferrals are not really a workaround the luxury tax. In many cases, those contracts’ net present value — which adjusts the deferrals for inflation — ended up around expectations. As Passan notes, the CBA requires teams to set aside money for the future salaries within two years of signing a contract that includes deferrals. Passan points out that the deferrals and significant signing bonuses, which many of those deals included, are advantageous for the players to minimize taxes under California law though.

None of this will change in this offseason or next. We’re less than two years away from the expiration of the CBA and what seems likely to be another offseason lockout. These conversations will take on greater urgency as that draws nearer.

MLBTR Podcast: Debating A Salary Cap, How To Improve Parity, More Dodgers Moves, And Anthony Santander

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

  • MLBTR’s poll asking whether fans want an MLB salary cap (0:30)
  • What does parity mean? (5:25)
  • Trying to assess where things stand for the next round of CBA talks (11:20)
  • How much would a salary cap actually improve parity and what other paths are there? (17:40)
  • What is the mentality of the players right now? (24:50)
  • How baseball is not like the other major sports (28:35)
  • The Dodgers trio of recent pitching additions: Roki Sasaki, Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates (31:55)
  • The Blue Jays signing Anthony Santander (40:30)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Dodgers Sign Roki Sasaki

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Jan. 22: The Dodgers have formally announced Sasaki’s signing. Baseball America, unsurprisingly, ranked Sasaki as the new No. 1 prospect in baseball this morning.

Jan. 17: The Dodgers have landed another star out of Japan. Roki Sasaki announced on Friday evening that he’s signing with Los Angeles. The Wasserman client will reportedly receive a $6.5MM signing bonus. The Dodgers have not officially announced the deal, which can be finalized at any point until the evening of January 23.

As an international amateur, Sasaki is limited to a minor league contract with a hard-capped signing bonus. He won’t immediately occupy a 40-man roster spot, though the team will certainly select him onto the MLB roster by Opening Day. In the end, it’s a fairly unsurprising result, though other outcomes seemed somewhat possible at times. The Dodgers have long been seen as the most logical landing spot for Sasaki, and though the Padres and Blue Jays tried to make surprising runs, the most likely outcome has now come to pass.

Sasaki’s free agency has been hotly anticipated for some time. He made his debut in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball in 2021 at the young age of 19 and went on to post outstanding results over the past few years. Thanks to triple-digit velocity on his fastball and a deadly splitter, he has managed to post a 2.10 earned run average in 394 2/3 innings over the past four years. He struck out 32.7% of batters faced and limited walks to a 5.7% clip.

That performance would have made him one of the top free agents of this or any offseason, which normally would have lined him up for a massive payday. However, Sasaki seemed determined to start his major league career as soon as possible, without much regard for money.

If he had waited until he turned 25, he would have been considered a professional under MLB rules, and thus able to sign for any amount the market would bear. That was the route taken by Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who secured a $325MM guarantee from the Dodgers last offseason.

But Sasaki is making the move now, having just turned 23 years old, meaning he is considered an amateur and thus subject to MLB’s international bonus pool system. Under that system, each team gets a set amount to spend on international amateurs annually. This year, each team gets between $5-8MM, a paltry amount compared to what Yamamoto secured. That at least made it theoretically possible that any club could sign him, since the big-spending clubs couldn’t outmuscle the smaller clubs like with many other free agents.

However, despite that theoretical even playing field, there were still many good reasons to expect the Dodgers to emerge victorious. Sasaki and his agent Joel Wolfe didn’t reveal much about the player’s preferences, but logically, the Dodgers are an attractive landing spot. They play on the West Coast, which is often appealing for players coming over from Asia simply due to the relative proximity. They have a strong track record of on-field success, having made the playoffs in each year going back to 2013 now and having just won the World Series a few months ago. They also roster a couple of other Japanese stars in Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani.

It wasn’t known how much Sasaki would weigh those factors compared to others. Wolfe pushed back on the notion that Sasaki cared about the presence of other Japanese players. He also suggested last month that Sasaki might prefer a smaller market, on account of some friction with the media during his time in Japan.

There were some arguments to possibly consider scenarios where he would prefer to go elsewhere. The Padres could have offered a smaller market than the Dodgers and it was reported that Sasaki has a strong relationship with current Padre Yu Darvish. The Blue Jays are owned by Rogers Communications, the club’s primary broadcaster, potentially giving them the ability to lower Sasaki’s access to the media. The fact that they are the only MLB team in Canada also theoretically opened up more endorsement opportunities from Japanese companies, as opposed to sharing the L.A. market with Ohtani and Yamamoto. The Jays also had a larger international bonus pool than the Dodgers and added to it by acquiring more pool space from the Guardians in a trade earlier today.

But despite any short-term drama that played out this offseason, the most obvious thing has happened. Sasaki has joined a team that is already loaded with stars like Ohtani, Yamamoto, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. 2005 was the last time the Dodgers won fewer than 80 games and now they are adding another hugely talented player into the mix.

Adding Sasaki’s talent is a huge boost to the roster but it’s also massive from a financial point of view. As an amateur, Sasaki will only be able to make the league minimum this year and until he qualifies for arbitration or signs an extension. That’s a massive thing for a club like the Dodgers, who already owe big sums of money to their aforementioned stars as well as Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Teoscar Hernández and plenty of others.

It also gives them an embarrassment of riches in the rotation, at least in terms of pure talent. Their rotation mix now includes Sasaki, Ohtani, Yamamoto, Glasnow, Snell, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May. It’s a near inevitability that Clayton Kershaw will eventually re-sign. Even with each of Gavin Stone, Emmet Sheehan, Kyle Hurt and River Ryan set to miss most or all of next season, the Dodgers’ rotation should run eight or nine names deep. Landon Knack, Justin Wrobleski, Nick Frasso and formerly touted rookie Bobby Miller are all on hand as depth starters.

It’s a staggering amount of talent for one team. The Dodgers won the World Series last year in spite of their playoff rotation. This year, the rotation should be a strength going into October. That’s despite the injury risk associated with essentially everyone in the group. Glasnow has never surpassed 134 MLB innings in a season. Yamamoto was limited to 18 starts in his first MLB season by a rotator cuff strain. Snell has only topped 130 frames twice. Kershaw, Gonsolin and May all missed most or all of last season recovering from major surgeries. Ohtani underwent elbow surgery late in 2023 and didn’t pitch last year.

Sasaki comes with plenty of durability questions in his own right. He averaged fewer than 100 innings per season over his four years in NPB. He never reached 130 innings and was limited to 111 frames across 18 appearances a year ago. Sasaki had a pair of injuries in 2024: an oblique tear and shoulder fatigue.

The Dodgers will happily take the tradeoff of some IL stints for rate dominance. Los Angeles doesn’t place much value on bulk innings. They’re content to embrace injury risk as they chase pitchers with top-of-the-rotation upside. That’s enabled in part by their resources, of course, though money isn’t a factor for Sasaki.

Every team would have been thrilled to sign Sasaki for $6.5MM. The Dodgers will also owe a $1.3MM posting fee to the pitcher’s NPB team, the Chiba Lotte Marines. The posting fee is proportional to the size of the player’s signing bonus. As Sasaki’s bonus was capped at a few million dollars, the Marines were limited to 20% of whatever he received.

It comes out to a $7.8MM investment to land Japan’s most talented pitcher. The Dodgers have signed arguably NPB’s best pitcher in consecutive offseasons. They’ll have Sasaki for the standard six-year window of team control associated with the promotion of any prospect. He’ll be slated for salaries around the league minimum for the next three seasons. He’d then go through three years of the arbitration process. MLB rules prohibit the Dodgers and Sasaki from reaching any kind of understanding regarding a contract extension to circumvent the bonus pool limits. While there’s no official cutoff for when the Dodgers could look to extend Sasaki, they cannot have any sort of unofficial long-term deal in the works right now.

The Dodgers opened this signing period tied with the Giants for the lowest bonus pool. They had $5.1462MM to spend on international amateurs on January 15. The Dodgers allowed a few of their verbal agreements with teenage prospects to lapse to keep open funds for Sasaki. They added to their pool by dealing minor league outfielder Dylan Campbell to the Phillies and sending outfield prospect Arnaldo Lantigua to Cincinnati tonight. Their precise bonus allotment isn’t known, but Sasaki will take the vast majority of the pool. That’s a trade every team would happily make for a potential plug-and-play ace.

It’s a brutal blow for fans of the other two finalists. The Padres found out this morning that they were out of the mix. They have multiple holes in their rotation and now face an even tougher challenge in the NL West. The Blue Jays finish as the runner-up on yet another marquee free agent talent. Toronto has lost out on Ohtani, Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes and Sasaki (among others) within the past two offseasons alone.

Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times first reported the signing bonus. Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

MLB Conducted Investigation Prior To Roki Sasaki’s Posting

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Prior to the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball officially posting right-hander Roki Sasaki for major league clubs last month, Major League Baseball conducted an investigation before authorizing Sasaki’s posting. Jack Harris of The Los Angeles Times reported this afternoon that MLB’s investigation was in order to “ensure the protocol agreement had been followed” and involved interviews with multiple parties. A report from Fabian Ardaya, Dennis Lin, Patrick Mooney, Ken Rosenthal, and Will Sammon of The Athletic added more details this evening, noting that the primary focus of the league’s probe was not Sasaki himself but rather the Marines. Both reports emphasize that the league found nothing that substantiated rumors of an illegal arrangement taking place.

That the league’s investigation focused on the Marines may seem somewhat surprising, but The Athletic’s report notes that the current posting system limits the payout for the Marines to just 25% of Sasaki’s total bonus. That’s a weak financial incentive for a club parting ways with its star player and represents not only a step back from the large posting fees players like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Seiya Suzuki have garnered for their clubs in recent years but also the $20MM posting fee the Nippon Ham Fighters were able to charge in exchange for Shohei Ohtani’s services when he signed with the Angels as an international amateur under the previous posting system back in December 2017. That relative lack of financial compensation for Sasaki’s services raised concerns among league officials for the potential for an under-the-table payment.

While MLB’s investigation found no wrongdoing by any party, speculation around the game of the possibility of an handshake agreement between Sasaki and the Dodgers grew significant enough to draw a strong denial from agent Joel Wolfe of Wasserman, who represents the right-handed phenom. As described in The Athletic’s report, clubs around the game felt uncertain about Sasaki’s goals throughout his posting process as teams like the Mariners and Red Sox failed to land a meeting with the 23-year-old while large market teams like the Cubs, Yankees, and Mets did in spite of suggestions that he may prefer to avoid the spotlight.

Regardless of that confusion, it became clear earlier this week that Sasaki had narrowed things down to three finalists: the Dodgers, Padres, and Blue Jays, each of whom then visited with Sasaki in their respective cities and began to prepare their offers. According to The Athletic’s report, San Diego told Sasaki’s camp that they would be willing to trade to maximize their bonus pool and offer Sasaki the entirety of those funds while the Dodgers lined up a trade with the Phillies to add additional bonus pool money in the event that they landed Sasaki. The Blue Jays were especially aggressive in their pursuit of Sasaki, however.

While all three clubs were clearly willing to add significant bonus pool dollars in order to land Sasaki, Toronto acquired $2MM in international bonus pool space from the Guardians by taking on the majority of the money owed to center fielder Myles Straw over the next two years despite not actually having a deal in place with the right-hander. The impetus behind that trade utlimately did not work out for Toronto as Sasaki wound up choosing Los Angeles. Despit that, The Athletic’s report indicates that the Blue Jays believe Straw could be a worthwhile addition in his own right and that the money they took on to land him won’t be prohibitive as they continue to look for ways to upgrade their roster. Notably, center fielder Daulton Varsho is not expected to be ready for Opening Day and the addition of Straw could give the club some depth at the position while Varsho recovers.

Blue Jays Still Looking For Starting Pitching

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After missing out on Roki Sasaki, the Blue Jays “remain involved in” the starting pitching market, Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith writes.  While Toronto has been more primarily linked to hitters this winter, the Jays have also been actively considering several starters, including such notable names as Sasaki, Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, Blake Snell, Luis Severino, Nick Pivetta, and Jack Flaherty.

Of that group, only Pivetta and Flaherty remained unsigned, as all of the other names signed with other teams.  The near-misses on Sasaki and Burnes in particular have only added to what has been a frustrating 14 months for the Blue Jays, who have continually come up on short on several high-profile free agent pursuits in the last two offseasons.

The Jays’ current starting five consists of Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt, Bowden Francis, and Yariel Rodriguez.  This group (and Yusei Kikuchi, who traded to the Astros at the deadline) combined to post roughly middle-of-the-pack numbers in comparison to other rotations around the league, and the starting staff was in many ways Toronto’s most consistent strength given the club’s lackluster lineup and bullpen.  Alek Manoah also pitched reasonably well in five starts before undergoing Tommy John surgery, and he is aiming to be back in the rotation by August.  Adding another starter, of course, would only deepen and help solidify this group.  Bringing a new starter into the rotation would push Rodriguez into relief duty, thus addressing another need by bringing another quality arm into the bullpen mix.

The question remains, however, whether the Blue Jays are looking to supplement this group with more of a frontline type of pitcher like Flaherty, or if they’re looking at more of a back-end hurler for what is technically a fifth starter’s role on paper.  The former would require another significant investment in a starting pitcher, on the heels of Berrios’ hefty extension, big free agent deals for Gausman and Bassitt, plus the $32MM Toronto spent to sign Rodriguez a year ago.

Between their big offers to Burnes and Juan Soto, the Jays front office clearly has some money available to spend, even though Toronto already has around $218MM on the books for 2025 and a luxury-tax number of $245MM (estimates courtesy of RosterResource).  What remains unclear is whether or not GM Ross Atkins was given the green light to stretch the budget in general, or just for special cases like Soto or Burnes.  There’s also the fact that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is looking for a mega-contract of his own as he approaches free agency, and there is reportedly a sizable gap between the Jays and the star first baseman in extension talks.

Flaherty is reportedly open to a shorter-term contract with opt-outs, though such a deal would still require a sizable average annual value.  Pivetta is surely also looking for a significant salary, plus he would also cost the Blue Jays $500K in int’l pool money and the team’s second-highest pick in the 2025 draft since Pivetta rejected Boston’s qualifying offer.  Pivoting away from these bigger names in the pitching market or perhaps obtaining a starter in a trade might be more of a feasible path for the Jays if they instead opted to spend more heavily in offense, such as rumored targets Anthony Santander or Pete Alonso.

In terms of other expenditures this offseason, the Blue Jays also signed Jeff Hoffman to a three-year, $33MM deal, and took on the remaining $97.5MM on Andres Gimenez’s contract after acquiring the second baseman from the Guardians.  Another $11MM was also taken on in the form of Myles Straw’s contract in yesterday’s trade with Cleveland for $2MM in international bonus pool space, which already looks like a misstep since that $2MM was earmarked for the failed bid for Sasaki.  A rival executive described the Straw trade in pretty blunt terms to Nicholson-Smith, calling the deal as a “masterclass [for Cleveland] to dump off so much money,” as “the Guardians knew [the Jays] were desperate.”

It was another tough blow to a Jays franchise that is facing as much pressure to win as any in baseball, given 2024’s disappointing 74-88 record and the looming free agency of Guerrero and Bo Bichette next winter.  Several holes and unanswered questions remain on the roster, and while there is still plenty of time in the offseason to make moves, Atkins’ efforts won’t be helped by the increased public perception that the Jays “need” to do something big.  Such a perception gives other front offices leverages in trade talks with the Jays, and player agents leverage in contract negotiations.

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