Let’s propose a hypothetical situation: Someone says you have to stay at a job you don’t like for two years. You still must perform at a high level; you can’t simply coast through things. At the end of those two years, you can sign a contract elsewhere worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars. Would you take the deal?
It seems like a no-brainer, but for Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki, he doesn’t want to wait.
The 23-year-old Sasaki is an ace in Japan and one of the most highly touted players among MLB scouts. If he stayed in Japan until he turned 25, he could sign as a free agent with any team for any amount of money. Sasaki is good enough that experts believed he could have signed a contract worth around $300 million. By coming over now, he’s giving up most of that money.
Instead, he’ll earn close to the league minimum for the next three seasons and won’t be a free agent until 2030. Sasaki believes he’s proved everything he can in Japan—he threw a perfect game in 2022 and has a career 2.02 ERA with a whopping 524 strikeouts in 414 2/3 innings. He’s willing to start in the MLB’s minor leagues and work his way up.
That means Sasaki is forgoing $300 million in two seasons for a potentially higher payday at the start of the next decade. Teams can spend between $5.1 million and $7.6 million to sign him out of the amateur player pool.
The San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers are the presumptive favorites to sign Sasaki, though every team in the league would be wise to consider him.
The Dodgers have two players who Sasaki probably looked at while making his decision. Yoshinobu Yamamoto waited until he was 25 before signing a $325 million deal with the team, the largest for a starting pitcher in MLB history. That’s the argument for waiting a couple of years before heading to the majors.
But Sasaki is likely more intrigued by Yamamoto’s teammate, Shohei Ohtani. The superstar came over from Japan as a 23-year-old, just like Sasaki. Ohtani agreed to a $2.3 million bonus from the Los Angeles Angels and made about $9.7 million during his first four years in the major leagues. He spent one more season with the Angels before signing an MLB-record $700 million deal with the Dodgers.
In his first season with LA, Ohtani won his third MVP award. The Dodgers reached the playoffs—the first time Ohtani made the postseason—and won the World Series over the New York Yankees.
Sasaki is similarly betting on himself. We won’t know for several years, but if all works out, he could earn twice as much down the road—well over half a billion dollars.
