Everyone hoping for a decision from Roki Sasaki is going to have wait until 2025.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said the Japanese phenom is expected to be part of next year’s international signing class, rather than the current one that ends on Dec. 15, according to The Athletic’s Evan Drellich.
The decision was widely expected, as waiting until 2025 will carry significant financial benefits for both Sasaki and his current team, the Chiba Lotte Marines of NPB.
Why Roki Sasaki getting posted in 2025 matters
The Marines announced last week that they would post Sasaki this offseason, but the timing of the posting is significant. Had Sasaki been posted before Dec. 1, he would’ve been part of the class of 2024. That’s because players have only 45 days to negotiate with teams after they’re posted, and teams can’t sign players between Dec. 15 and Jan. 15.
Because Sasaki is younger than 23, he is not eligible for the kind of deals his countryman Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed last year. Instead, he is limited to the international bonus pools, which are typically used to sign Latin American amateurs.
Many teams have already drained those pools with signings from earlier in the year. The Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers have literally zero dollars left for 2024, while the San Diego Padres, who are seen as significant contenders for Sasaki, have a grand total of $2,200. The Los Angeles Dodgers are favored to land Sasaki and have the most remaining 2024 money, with $2.5 million, but Sasaki more than doubles his earning power by waiting a few weeks.
The international bonus pools reset when the new signing period starts in 2025, with every team having between $5 million and $8 million. Sasaki will get more money by waiting, and that matters to the Marines because the posting fee they get will be 20% of his signing bonus.
To be clear, the difference of a few million dollars likely doesn’t matter much to Sasaki. He arguably lit a nine-figure amount of money on fire by coming to the United States this offseason rather than two years from now, so there’s no way his choice will come down to one team offering a few hundred thousand dollars more than another.
Instead, Sasaki’s decision will likely depend on which team he thinks can help him have the best career in MLB. That could mean which team is most likely to develop him into an ace or most likely to win a World Series, or it could be the team that can provide the most comfortable situation in the locker room and community or something else. Every team will want to sign Sasaki because he’s a potential ace available for “one year of a fifth starter” money, but it’s ultimately up to the player himself.
Unfortunately, while there’s little reason for Sasaki not to wait, some others could receive collateral damage.
Roki Sasaki’s posting in 2025 could hurt players you’ve never heard of
Remember how those international bonus pools are used to sign Latin American teenagers?
Well, that is still true in 2025. And that means there are players in the Dominican Republic and other countries who might have something to worry about.
The way the international signing system is supposed to work is that players become amateur free agents if they turn 16 by Sept. 1 of a given year. They are then eligible to sign with teams and formally start their professional careers.
The reality of the system is nowhere close to those rules. Players might hit free agency the year they turn 16, but their futures are often decided years earlier, when their representatives enter into under-the-table agreements for them to sign with a specific team. Once those agreements are made, players spend the rest of their pre-free-agency years in the team’s academy, learning baseball under their future organization’s eye while awaiting a future-changing payday. Calling this an open secret is an understatement.
The problem is those agreements aren’t binding. And if a team finds a better use of that money — say, a Japanese flamethrower who has dominated the second-best league in the world — they can back out of an agreement with few repercussions.
If the Dodgers, Padres or some other team sign Sasaki with the majority, or even the totality, of their bonus pool, odds are a bunch of amateurs will have just lost their payday. Finding another team would be difficult because of how many of these deals are done in advance. A player’s choice is likely to either take far less money than promised or wait another year and hope the money comes through this time.
That’s not Sasaki’s fault, but it is an unpleasant side effect of his foray into a flawed system.
