Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I can’t believe things have gotten even worse for the Sixers since I wrote about them a few days ago.
In today’s SI:AM:
💥 Indiana’s impact transfers
✅ Week 12 NFL picks
🏎️ F1 clinching scenarios
The waiting game continues
The race to sign Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki will be one of the driving narratives of this MLB offseason. But don’t expect it to be resolved any time soon. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said Wednesday that Sasaki is likely to sign after the league’s 2025 international signing period begins on Jan. 15.
The reason Sasaki won’t sign until after the new year is that he is considered an international amateur free agent. The vast majority of international amateur free agents are teenagers from Latin America, who are eligible to sign with MLB teams when they turn 16. But in order to be a true free agent, unencumbered by MLB’s rules on international signings, a player must be at least 25 years old and have played at least six seasons in a foreign professional league. Sasaki is 23 and has only played four years in Japan’s NPB. That means teams will be severely restricted in the kind of contract he can be offered.
Every MLB team is allotted a pool of signing bonus money to award to players it signs during each international signing period, which runs from Jan. 15 to Dec. 15 of each year. For the 2025 signing period, the pools range from $5.1 million to $7.6 million. Teams that lost top free agents get more money and those that signed those free agents get less money. Teams can also trade for international signing money, although the amount is capped at 60% of the initial signing pool.
If this all sounds familiar it’s because it’s the same set of rules that governed the signing of Shohei Ohtani when he jumped from NPB to MLB before the 2018 season. His signing bonus with the Los Angeles Angels was $2.315 million.
Because the 2024 signing period is nearly complete, most teams have already spent the majority of their signing pools. The Associated Press reported on Nov. 9 that the Los Angeles Dodgers had the largest remaining pool at $2.5 million, followed by the Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants. Those are the only four teams with at least $1 million available, while there are also 10 teams with less than $50,000 available. By waiting to sign Sasaki until the start of the 2025 period, more teams will be able to offer him more money.
An overlooked aspect of the Sasaki chase is the ripple effect it will have on the rest of the international free-agent market. While teams aren’t allowed to sign players until they turn 16, the worst-kept secret in baseball is that clubs often enter into unofficial handshake agreements with players years before they’re able to sign. Earlier this month, an MLB investigation found that a 19-year-old player in the Dominican Republic had entered into a verbal agreement with the San Diego Padres after telling the team he was 14 years old. While players can’t sign until Jan. 15, large portions of teams’ 2025 bonus pools have already been accounted for via handshake agreements. If a team uses all or most of its bonus pool to sign Sasaki, that means there will be potentially dozens of Latin American players suddenly thrust into uncertainty and potentially denied life-changing money.
Sasaki’s decision to come to MLB now is a fascinating one. He could have earned a lot more money by waiting until he was a true free agent. The restrictions on how much money he’s able to be offered mean more teams will be in the running to sign him and that factors other than money will play a bigger role in his decision. It’s unclear what Sasaki is looking for in his next team. A championship contender? An innovative approach to pitching? Japanese teammates? A particular kind of city? Nobody seems to know yet—and we’ll have to wait a little longer to find out where he’s going to go.
The best of Sports Illustrated
- Indiana is 10–0 this season thanks to a new coach and a group of transfers he brought over from his last stop. Pat Forde explains the role that Curt Cignetti and his former James Madison players have played in the Hoosiers’ turnaround.
- Here are our experts’ picks for every NFL game this week.
- Zach Koons laid out what needs to happen for Max Verstappen to clinch the F1 championship this weekend in Las Vegas.
- The NWSL Championship on Saturday is also a showcase for the Kansas City Current’s first-of-its-kind stadium, Madison Williams writes.
- The guest on this week’s SI Media podcast with Jimmy Traina is ESPN president Burke Magnus.
- Geno Auriemma is now college basketball’s winningest coach.
- ESPN’s long-running Around the Horn will go off the air next year.
- The Pro Football Hall of Fame has released its list of 25 semifinalists for the next induction class.
The top five…
… things I saw last night:
This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Why Japanese Sensation Roki Sasaki Won‘t Sign Until 2025.
