The Chiba Lotte Marines announced that they will start the process of posting right-hander Roki Sasaki. This will pave the way for the 23-year-old pitcher to play Major League Baseball. According to the best bookie software, the posting system is a transfer method between Nippon Professional Baseball and MLB. Thus, Sasaki will be available to all MLB teams.
Sasaki is known as the “Monster of the Reiwa Era” for his powerful fastball and slider, often reaching triple digits.
Due to his age, Sasaki is a minor league free agency, severely restricting the amount of money teams can offer him (and the 20% posting fee Lotte gets). Players aged 25 and older with six years of foreign league experience can sign contracts with major league teams when posted.
Roki Sasaki Moves to the MLB
If Sasaki had waited, he might have tried to surpass Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who recently signed a 12-year, $325 million deal with the Dodgers. Sasaki will follow Shohei Ohtani, who joined Major League Baseball at 23 with a $2.3 million contract from the Los Angeles Angels. Last year, Sasaki asked for a promotion to the major leagues, but the organization denied his request.
Sasaki will be classified as an international amateur in 2024 or 2025, based on when he posts his results. An individual is granted 45 days from the date of posting to sign with a major league club. Sasaki will initially sign with a lower-league club, which can promote him to the majors before the 2025 season.
According to sportsbook PPH experts, teams from bigger markets can spend up to $4.6 million, while the best teams in the international amateur category can spend little over $7.1 million. All other teams fall somewhere in the middle. Through trades for each other’s bonus pools, teams may increase their pools by a maximum of 60%. Foreign free agents can sign with teams from January 15 to December 15 each year, but most teams have likely used their 2024 bonus pools by now.
Sasaki’s Official Posting
The procedure usually takes weeks, so if the formal posting is delayed until mid-December, Sasaki may sign when the 2025 international season starts on January 15th. For financial flexibility, teams can trade for international bonus pool space. In addition, they can avoid non-binding commitments with young Latin American players. Many have commitments now, with top bonus pools of around $7.5 million and lower ones of about $5.1 million.
Given his talent level, organizations will likely go to great lengths to sign Sasaki. Five years ago, at the Koshien, Japan’s most prestigious high school baseball tournament, Sasaki rose to fame on a national level. He threw almost 500 pitches over eight days, including a complete game that lasted 194 pitches, 12 innings, and 21 strikeouts.
A perfect game with 19 strikeouts was thrown by Sasaki for Lotte in 2022 when he was 20 years old. In his subsequent start a week later, he threw eight more perfect innings before being removed from the game. Sasaki gained fame in 2023 for his fastball during the World Baseball Classic, where Japan defeated Mexico in the semifinals with an average speed of 100.5 mph. Despite Lotte turning down his request to join MLB after the 2023 season, his departure became more and more inevitable.
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