Elite stuff, check.
Curiosity for information, check.
Hunger to be historically elite, check.
Dallas Keuchel, the 2015 AL Cy Young winner, spent the final two-plus months of the just-concluded season as Chiba Lotte Marines teammates with Roki Sasaki and left feeling, “The overview is incredible. There is nothing he can’t do.”
The Marines announced on Saturday that Sasaki, who turned 23 last week, will be posted this offseason. Because he is under 25, Sasaki cannot be treated as an unfettered free agent as, say, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was last year en route to signing a pitching record $325 million contract over 12 years. Instead, Sasaki will mirror when Shohei Ohtani came over after the 2017 season and could sign only a minor league contract and receive a bonus of what was in a team’s international bonus pool.
Ohtani signed for just $2.3 million. Even if Sasaki delays his signing until the 2025 period begins after Jan. 15, teams currently have roughly between $5 million-$7.5 million to sign him with the ability to potentially trade for a little more. But the dollars are a technicality not a reflection of someone who is viewed as having a chance to top Ohtani, Yu Darvish and Hideo Nomo as the greatest pitcher to come to MLB from Japan.
That should unleash a frenzied pursuit. But will it? Many teams, including the Mets and Yankees, have obsessively scouted Sasaki and sent over top executives to see him and show respect about their seriousness. Within the industry, though, the Dodgers are viewed as everything from a powerful favorite to all but having him secured already. The signing of Ohtani, particularly, and also Yamamoto made the new champions the team of Japan – “I saw some Yankees hats, but everywhere it was the ‘D’ for Dodgers on shirts and hats,” Keuchel observed.
“I heard some, some rumblings about a done deal with the Dodgers – you know, having a plan for him,” Keuchel added. “And if I was Vegas, I would definitely put them as the favorite, but I don’t know. We never really talked about that.”
As for the New York clubs, Keuchel said, “We talked about those two East Coast teams. I just think the Dodgers have the upper hand just because of Shohei, Yamamoto and even Darvish pitching there for that playoff run in ‘17. Anywhere you went (in Japan) the Dodgers were on TV in the morning, just because of those guys. So we briefly spoke about the pinstripes and about the Mets, but really, there was no central team that we talked about.”
In theory, every club because of the tamped-down cost and the high-end talent will try to land Sasaki, who in four Nippon Baseball Seasons had a 2.02 ERA for the Chiba Lotte Marines and struck out 524 in 414 2/3 innings and also shined (11 strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings) in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
“I think sometimes these guys (who routinely dominate) you take for granted because they do so well so often,” Keuchel said by phone. “And everybody wants to talk about the new, hot commodity or somebody who’s doing well that year, when really there are guys putting up numbers all the time and you don’t appreciate it as much. And I think what he’s done at a young age in Japan, for the innings he’s pitched. He is like that. He’s got that dominance where you go, ‘OK, he’s dominating again’ so let’s talk about something else (besides Sasaki). And to me that is a surefire way of saying, I think he’s going to do very well in the States.”
Keuchel broke down Sasaki on the scouting scale of 20-to-a-top-grade–of-80:
–70 for pitchability. “I saw multiple times where his fastball wasn’t there early and he could land his slider and even his split for strikes.”
–No less than a 70 for a fastball. “He can pitch at 93-94 (mph) and be successful.” Keuchel noted that he often averaged more than that trying to “impress” all the MLB officials who were there to see him. Sasaki has often topped out at more than 100 mph.
–65-70 for his splitter, which Keuchel viewed as his best off-speed pitch and often unhittable.
–70 for a slider and as he learns to vary speeds, “A chance to get to 80, that’s how good it can be. He can be like Dylan Cease and throw the pitch 60 percent of the time.”
Keuchel, who has won 103 MLB games, also cited a “mentality that is plus, plus.”
“I am usually harsh with grading, but I am generous here because he is 23,” Keuchel said. “I debuted at 24 and it still took me two more seasons to get my feet wet and really develop. And I am watching him at 23 getting some pretty damn good hitters out. I really think he could flourish (in MLB).”
Keuchel organized pitcher dinners to get to know his teammates better and described Sasaki as “intellectual,” desirous for information and good in a clubhouse. He noted that Sasaki was working on his English.
“He’s a curious young man, who is very quiet, even for his own Japanese culture,” Keuchel said. “But I think he loves winning and I think he loves baseball, so you can’t really discount that. I think he literally wants to be the best version of himself he can be. And I really believe he thinks he can be one of the best pitchers of all-time.”
