Roki Sasaki Included in MLB's 2025 International Signing Period, Rob Manfred Says

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters that he expects Japanese star pitcher Roki Sasaki to be part of the 2025 international signing class.

As noted by ESPN's Jorge Castillo, that means Sasaki won't sign with an MLB team before January 15, when the league's international signing period begins.

The 23-year-old Sasaki played for Nippon Professional Baseball's Chiba Lotte Marines, who already announced on Nov. 9 that they would begin the process of posting the right-hander.

Over four seasons, Sasaki went 30-15 with a 2.02 ERA (0.88 WHIP) and 524 strikeouts over 414.2 innings (69 games). He most notably threw a perfect game in April 2022, striking out 19 in a 6-0 win over the Orix Buffaloes.

This is a unique situation to say the least. Sasaki has the potential to be a superstar someday, but he won't be getting superstar money, at least not yet.

As Fox Sports MLB Analyst Ben Verlander noted, Sasaki can only sign a minor league deal, although he can receive an MLB team's entire bonus money pool.

However, no team has more than $7,555,500. Those teams are as follows, per Baseball America: the Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners and Tampa Bay Rays.

So money really isn't going to be an overriding factor here. As for where he'll land, the wide expectation is the Los Angeles Dodgers, home already to Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

This is what ESPN's Buster Olney had to say recently on the Baseball Tonight podcast (h/t Maren Angus of Dodger Nation).

"In theory, he could play for any one of the 30 teams because he's not going to get a big free agent deal the way (Yoshinobu) Yamamoto did last winter. He's going to wind up taking a very minimal deal the way Shohei Ohtani did. I had a conversation with executives about this. Thirty out of 30 teams believe he's going to the Dodgers. That's the reality, right? But we don't really know what's in his heart. You won't really know until he actually is having these conversations."

Jon Heyman of the New York Post also reported that "insiders are assuming LA is the heavy favorite."

L.A. does have the least amount of bonus pool money to offer (a league-low $5,146,200, matching only the San Francisco Giants), but that clearly doesn't matter here based on MLB insiders' intuitions.

Ultimately, Sasaki won't be able to sign anywhere for a couple months, but he's clearly one of the biggest names to watch this offseason regardless.