The Los Angeles Dodgers are no longer interested in Roki Sasaki. Los Angeles first noticed Sasaki when his Nippon Professional Baseball team, the Chiba Lotte Marines posted him.
Jim Bowden from the Athletic has weighed in on the deal and what went wrong with it. Based on his discussions with sources from the MLB, Bowden believes that it is “unlikely” the Dodgers will sign Sasaki. And he gave some reasons for that.
The major issue is money. Since Sasaki is below 25 and has not completed six years of service in a foreign major league, he is under the MLB’s international amateur signing bonus pool rules. This means that he will not get up to the $325 million contract that Yoshinobu Yamamoto got last season.
Instead, the value of Sasaki’s contract will be hampered by what a club has in its bonus pool. That could be somewhere close to $7 million if he waits to sign until after January 15. That is when every team’s bonus pool will be refilled for the beginning of the 2025 international signing period.
According to Bowden, one way for Sasaki to make more money outside his contract is through endorsements. But this is the problem with a Sasaki vs Dodgers contract.
“In Los Angeles, [Sasaki would] be in the shadow of both [Shohei] Ohtani and Yamamoto, which would lessen his endorsement ceiling,” Bowden wrote.
Conversely, if the 23-year-old signs with the San Diego Padres, he would share a club with Yu Darvish. This “could potentially maximize his endorsements in Japan, positioning himself as a rival to the Dodgers’ Ohtani and Yamamoto rather than a teammate of theirs.”
Moreover, a large part of Japanese media cover the Los Angeles Dodgers daily, and per Bowden, “that level of attention is not the best situation for a young, developing pitcher.”
Los Angeles is known for its exceptional approach to training young pitchers. But Bowden says that clubs like the Padres, Tampa Bay Rays, New York Mets, and Atlanta Braves also have fantastic pitching development programs. This curbs any leverage the Dodgers might have.
“Based on what I’m hearing,” Bowden wrote, “I think the Padres, Rays, Mets and Braves are all more likely to sign Sasaki than the Dodgers — and several other teams will be in the mix.”
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