WHOA. We have a big name hitting the MLB free agent market that is a bit unexpected.
Roki Sasaki, the Chiba Lotte Marines pitcher who turned heads during the World Baseball Classic in 2023 with his unreal abilities with his native Japan, will be posted, per the Marines. That means a team will pay the Japanese franchise money for the right to sign Sasaki — like the Dodgers did with Yoshinobu Yamamoto — and also pay Sasaki.
But he’s not going to get the massive contract Yamamoto got. Why is that?
Let Yahoo’s Jack Baer explain: “Because he is younger than 25 years old, Sasaki will not be able to negotiate a high-price MLB contract like his countryman Yoshinobu Yamamoto did to the tune of $325 million last offseason.”
Here’s more:
Instead, Sasaki will only be able to negotiate a signing bonus out of MLB teams’ international bonus pools, which topped out at a little over $7 million this year. After signing, his status will be similar to any other prospect, going through six years of pre-arbitration and arbitration salaries before he can reach free agency. It’s the same process Shohei Ohtani went through when he came over to MLB before the 2018 season, and Sasaki can only hope it ends with his own nine-figure payday.
There you have it.
