Do Orioles have a chance to sign Japanese star pitcher Roki Sasaki?
While some teams think they can afford to sign Corbin Burnes, Max Fried or Blake Snell to large free-agent contracts, there’s another star free-agent starting pitcher who every major league team, including the Orioles, has a chance to sign.
Roki Sasaki, the 23-year-old right-hander who pitched for Japan’s Chiba Lotte Marines, will be posted by his club in the coming weeks, enabling him to sign with a major league club.
Like Shohei Ohtani when he signed with the Los Angeles Angels, Sasaki is under 25, and he’ll be subject to the same restrictions that other young players outside of the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico are under.
He can’t sign a major league contract, and because he’ll sign a minor league contract, his earning power will be restricted. Ohtani was also 23 when he signed with the Angels and had to wait the requisite six years before he could sign his mammoth contract with the Dodgers last year.
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If Sasaki is posted before December 2nd, he could sign with any major league club, but there are only a few, including the Orioles, that have significant money to sign him. Sasaki has 45 days to sign with a major league team after he’s posted and the 2024 international signing period ends on December 15th.
If Sasaki is posted after December 2nd, he could sign with a team that has money left in its 2024 budget or wait until the 2025 international signing period begins on January 15th to sign with teams that can spend more money on him.
If he doesn’t sign during the 45-day posting period, he returns to the Chiba Lotte Marines for the 2025 season. The team that signs him must pay Sasaki’s team 25 percent of the contract’s value.
The Orioles have $2,147,300 of their international signing bonus pool for 2024 remaining, second only to the Dodgers’ $2,502,500. The Yankees have the third-largest pool remaining, $1,487,200.
Others have much less. Only 10 clubs have at least $500,000 remaining. The San Diego Padres have just $2,200 while Tampa Bay, Atlanta and Texas don’t have any money at all.
It would benefit Sasaki if his Japanese team waited until December 2nd for the posting because every major league team has between $5,146,200 and $7,555,500 to sign international players.
The Dodgers and San Francisco Giants have the lowest amount while Cincinnati, Detroit, Miami, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Oakland, Seattle and the Rays have the most.
Along with Arizona, Cleveland, Colorado, Kansas City and Pittsburgh, the Orioles have $6,908,600 to spend on international players beginning on January 15th.
Other teams that have a history of signing Japanese players — Boston, the Chicago Cubs, the Angels, Mets, Yankees and Padres — have $6,261,000. So do the Toronto Blue Jays, who made a serious effort at signing Ohtani last year.
The Orioles and other teams wouldn’t hesitate to spend the bulk of their international money for 2025 on a prospect like Sasaki, who is 30-15 with a 2.02 ERA in four seasons.
In 2024, Sasaki allowed just two home runs in 111 innings, striking out 120 and walking just 32.
He’s an attractive prospect, and instead of spending $325 million over 13 years as the Dodgers did with Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a team can get a bargain with Sasaki, who won’t be eligible for free agency until 2030.
It’s natural to think that he might want to join Ohtani and Yamamoto with the Dodgers, or Yu Darvish with the Padres. The Yankees were happy with their signings of Hideki Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka, and the Cubs signed Shota Imanaga, who had an outstanding 2024 season.
The Orioles’ experience with Japanese players is limited. They had reliever Shintaro Fujinami for the second half of the 2023 season, but he didn’t make the postseason roster and is again in free agency after a lost 2024 season with the New York Mets.
While the Orioles have significant money for 2024 left and much more for 2025 and an attractive team, Baltimore is probably not a city that would appeal to a young Japanese player. There are few Japanese people in the area, and it’s not a glamorous city like New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Boston or Toronto.
The Orioles will take a shot at Sasaki, and they have a solid baseball case, but the allure of the West Coast and its closer proximity to Japan and the history of the Dodgers and Japanese players makes the Orioles a long, long shot in this chase.
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