Everyone waiting for a decision from Roki Sasaki will have to 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 Dec. 15, according to Atlético’s Evan Drellich.
The decision was widely expected, as waiting until 2025 will bring significant financial benefits to both Sasaki and his current team, NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines.
Why it is important that Roki Sasaki be published in 2025
The Marines announced last week that they would send Sasaki this offseason, but the timing of the release is significant. If Sasaki had been released before December 1, he would have been part of the class of 2024. This is because players only have 45 days to negotiate with teams after being released, and teams cannot sign players between the December 15 and January 15.
Because Sasaki is under 23 years old, he is not eligible for the type of deals his compatriot Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed last year. Instead, it is limited to international bonus pools, which are typically used to sign Latin American fans.
Many teams have already exhausted those reserves with signings from the beginning of the year. The Tampa Bay Rays and the Texas Rangers We literally have zero dollars left. for 2024, while the San Diego Padres, who are seen as top contenders for Sasaki, have a total of $2,200. The Los Angeles Dodgers are the favorites to land Sasaki and have the most money left for 2024, at $2.5 million, but Sasaki more than doubles his earning power by waiting a few weeks.
International bonus pools reset when the new signing period begins in 2025, with each team has between $5 million and $8 million. Sasaki will get more money if he waits, and that’s important to the Marines because the posting fee they will receive will be 20% of your signing bonus.
To be clear, the difference of a few million dollars probably doesn’t matter much to Sasaki. He arguably set fire to a nine-figure amount of money by coming to the United States this offseason instead of two years from now, so there’s no way his pick will come down to a team offering a few hundred thousands of dollars more than another.
Instead, Sasaki’s decision will likely depend on which team he believes can help him have the best MLB career. That could mean which team is most likely to make him an ace or win a World Series, or it could be the team that can provide the most comfortable situation in the locker room and the community or something else. Every team will want to sign Sasaki because he’s a potential ace available for “one-year fifth starter” money, but it’s ultimately up to the player himself.
Unfortunately, while there is little reason for Sasaki not to wait, some others could suffer collateral damage.
Roki Sasaki’s 2025 release could hurt players you’ve never heard of
Do you remember how those international bonuses are used to sign Latin American teenagers?
Well, that will still be 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 September 1 of a given year. They will then be eligible to sign with teams and formally begin their professional careers.
The reality of the system is not at all close to those rules. Players can hit free agency the year they turn 16, but their future is often decided years earlier, when their representatives make back-room deals for them to sign with a specific team. Once those deals are made, players spend the remainder of their pre-free agency years in the team’s academy, learning baseball under the supervision of their future organization while waiting for a future-changing payday. To call this an open secret is an understatement.
The problem is that these agreements are not binding. And if a team finds a better use for that money (say, a Japanese flamethrower that has dominated the world’s second-best league) it can walk away from a deal with few repercussions.
If the Dodgers, Padres or some other team signs Sasaki with most, or even all, of their bonus pool, a bunch of fans will likely end up missing out on a payday. Finding another team would be difficult due to the number of deals being made in advance. Choosing a player will probably require much less money than promised or waiting another year and hoping the money comes this time.
That’s not Sasaki’s fault, but it’s an unpleasant side effect of his foray into a broken system.