Orioles offseason wish list: Roki Sasaki

The 23-year-old phenom from Japan may be the best pitcher on the market for the pitching-hungry Orioles

With 2024 ace Corbin Burnes currently in the free agent pool and starters Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells expected to miss at least part of 2025, it’s clear that starting pitching is atop the Orioles’ offseason wish list. While a reunion with Burnes is still very much on the table, the four-time All-Star isn’t the only elite pitcher in this offseason’s free agent class. Vying with Burnes for the title of best available pitcher is Japan’s Roki Sasaki—which means the Orioles should be vying for Sasaki’s services.

The 6’3” right hander out of Rikuzentakata, Japan, just turned 23 earlier this month and is rivaling the buzz that surrounded Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto when those stars made the jump to MLB.

In four seasons with the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball, the youthful Sasaki has already proven himself as one of the best pitchers in Japan. In 64 appearances for Chiba Lotte, Sasaki posted a 2.10 ERA with an 11.5 K/9 rate—a number that would’ve led all qualified MLB starters in 2024. To put it into context, Yamamoto had a 2.11 ERA and 9.3 K/9 rate across seven seasons in the NPB.

Sasaki’s legend reached extreme heights two years ago when he pitched a perfect game against the Orix Buffalo while tying the NPB single-game record for strikeouts. Against an Orix lineup that included former major leaguer Breyvic Valera and current Red Sox DH Masataka Yoshida, Sasaki went 27-up, 27-down while racking up 19 Ks. In addition to tying the single-game punchout record, Sasaki set a new world record by striking out 13 batters in a row, K’ing the side in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings.

The recent success of Japanese pitchers in the major leagues also means Sasaki shouldn’t have to worry about adapting his game to a step up in competition. In 18 starts for the Dodgers last year, Yamamoto put up a 3.00 ERA (2.61 FIP) while racking up 105 Ks in 90 innings.

Fellow Japanese rookie Shota Imanaga was an All-Star with the Cubs, putting up a 2.91 ERA (3.72 FIP) with 174 Ks in 173.1 innings. The Orioles are all too familiar with how good a Japanese import can be, as they saw Imanaga throw six shutout innings against them in a 4-0 loss to the Cubs back in July.

Sasaki brings a similar arsenal as Yamamoto, but with even better stuff. While Yamamoto’s fastball averaged 95.5 MPH last season with the Dodgers, Sasaki’s heater averaged nearly 99 MPH last season with the Marines and can get all the way up to 102. The 23-year-old also features an even more devastating splitter than Yamamoto, with opponents whiffing on his split-finger 57.1% of the time last season.

Sasaki differs from the Dodgers’ starter in that his third best pitch is a slider, not a curveball, with Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com reporting that some evaluators view Sasaki’s breaking ball as a potential third plus offering. The trio of plus offerings give Sasaki the same arsenal as Orioles All-Star closer Felix Bautista—and while Sasaki doesn’t have Bautista’s same intimidating 6’8” frame, he makes up for it with better command of his secondary pitches.

The Japanese phenom not only offers the Orioles a chance to make a huge splash in the starting pitching market, but do so without eating up a huge portion of their free agent budget. As MLB.com’s free agent rankings outline, “Players younger than 25 years old who have not reached six years of service in a foreign major league are subject to MLB’s international amateur signing bonus pool rules, setting a cap on their contracts.”

Currently the Orioles have the second highest amount of remaining bonus pool money for the 2024 signing period with $2,147,300—more than $650,000 higher than the Yankees in third. The Dodgers are in first with just over $2.5M in remaining bonus pool money.

However, some reports suggest that Sasaki will wait until after January 15th to sign, meaning his contract will come out of the 2025 bonus pool. This could prove advantageous for Baltimore, as they’ll have more bonus pool money in 2025 than the likes of the Dodgers, Yankees, Padres, Red Sox—teams rumored to be making an effort at signing Sasaki. However, it also means all 30 teams could realistically make an offer for Sasaki’s services, creating a much more competitive market.

The Dodgers are the presumptive favorites to sign Sasaki, not only because of their financial edge, but their long history with Japanese talent. They currently employ the biggest Japanese star in Ohtani and a rising star in Yamamoto, and the likes of Hideo Nomo, Hiroki Kuroda and Kenta Maeda all donned Dodger Blue during their MLB careers.

The Orioles have only had two Japanese players in their franchise’s history in pitchers Koji Uehara and Shintaro Fujinami. If Baltimore is going to make Sasaki their third-ever Japanese player, they’ll need to sell him on their track record of developing young pitchers like Bradish and Grayson Rodriguez while also emphasizing the ability to for him to compete for championships right away.

The O’s will likely be fighting an uphill battle to land Sasaki, but doing so would not only give them a player that can lead their rotation, but one who’s in the same age range as much of their young core. Given the limits on the size of Sasaki’s contract, there’s also a world where the Orioles could land both Burnes and the Japanese phenom.