The New York Yankees could be the first MLB club that the next Japanese megastar calls home.
Japan starting pitcher Roki Sasaki (14) delivers a pitch during the first inning against Mexico at LoanDepot Park
The New York Yankees haven’t signed one a top Japanese player in a while, but that could change with the next phenom set to come over.
Roki Sasaki’s journey to the MLB from Japan is more of a ‘when’ than a ‘if’ and almost every team is going to join in on the sweepstakes.
The Washington Post’s Chelsea Janes made it clear that Sasaki will be coming to MLB sooner-rather-than-later. Here’s what Janes said as to the pitchers’ excitement about coming to America:
“Because he is so eager and because MLB teams are so eager for what he can offer, Sasaki seems almost certain to eschew tradition by pushing to leave for the United States sooner than almost any other Nippon Professional Baseball player has.”
MLB teams have become aware that he is coming over and they are beginning to prepare for his arrival. Still, it’s unclear exactly when he will come.
Currently, the 6-foot-4 sensation is 22 years old. If he does decide to leave before he’s 25, he will be subject to the international signing pool for each team which means limited money.
His arrival will be one of the biggest stories in recent baseball history, larger than Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s this past season.
In four years and 59 games of NPB play, Sasaki has an absurd 1.94 ERA and 0.856 WHIP. He has a 103 MPH fastball and great breaking balls that make him very hard to hit. He’s the most anticipated foreign prospect since Shohei Ohtani and for good reason.
New York has been home to some of the best Japanese MLB players of all time, such as Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui, but it hasn’t happened in a while. The last big named pitcher that they signed was Masahiro Tanaka a decade ago. They had a couple of meetings with Yamamoto, but were unable to seal the deal. Could Sasaki be the one to buck the recent trend?
