Roki Sasaki, a leading pitcher in Japan and the No. 3 player in the rankings The Athletics top 40 MLB free agent big board, is about to make his long-awaited jump to Major League Baseball.

The Chiba Lotte Marines, Sasaki’s club in Nippon Professional Baseball, announced early Saturday morning that they will draft the 23-year-old right-hander, making him available to MLB teams in what is expected to be a wide-open sweepstakes for his services.

Due to his age, Sasaki will be considered an international amateur in the MLB system, meaning he would earn the minimum salary and his bonus will be capped. Each MLB team is assigned a dollar amount to spend on international amateurs and cannot exceed it, although they can trade for some extra space. Teams on the low end are allocated $5.1 million for 2025, and $7.6 million on the high end. Therefore, both Sasaki’s salary and the 20 percent fee paid to the Lotte Marines will be relatively small amounts.

It’s a situation similar to the one Shohei Ohtani faced when we arrived in the US, and a stark contrast to last winter’s top prize in the Japanese market, Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

“He is not the finished product that Yamamoto is,” a club official said recently The Athletics. “But there aren’t many people in the world who are more talented.”

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Sasaki has been coveted since his days in high school, and few pitchers from Japan will come to the U.S. with as much hype. His fastball was clocked in the triple figures. In a recent analysis The Athletics Eno Sarris noted that even with a small step back in pace and results from last season, Sasaki still showed signs of translating his success to the United States. Only Juan Soto and Corbin Burnes are ahead of Sasaki The Athletics free agent rankings.

“If he was someone who was in the amateur draft, he would easily go in the top five of the draft,” said a senior executive in the sport. “Probably better.”

It is unclear which international class Sasaki will be part of. The 2024 MLB international signing period runs through December 15 and the 2025 period begins on January 15. Clubs are already committed to players in both classes, but Sasaki is a special talent that teams have prepared for the courts.

It’s unclear exactly when that process will take place, but once Sasaki is placed, he will have 45 days to sign. He is expected to be part of an MLB team in 2025. The news went out at 1am on the US East Coast, and at 3pm in Chiba.

While there has been long speculation about Sasaki’s arrival in the MLB this season, it also seemed possible that it could take a few years. If Chiba had postponed Lotte until 2026, when Sasaki was 25, both he and the club could have made significantly more money. Sasaki would then be considered a “foreign professional” under the MLB collective bargaining agreement, and he would not be subject to the international bonus pool. That’s the level Yamamoto fell under last season when he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers for $325 million.

The Dodgers, home to Shohei Ohtani and Yamamoto, are often linked to Sasaki. The New York Mets and Chicago Cubs, among others, have also followed him closely. Meanwhile, the Yankees and Padres have explored the Pacific Rim extensively and have been aggressive in that market.

NPB players must play nine years in the league to become an international free agent and sign freely with an MLB team, without being placed for bids. Because the wait time is so long, the best Japanese players usually arrive in the US via the bidding system.

Sasaki pitched for Japan in the 2023 World Baseball Classic and turned heads for hitting triple figures with his fastball. He also throws a slider and a splitter. His durability is probably his biggest question mark.

(Photo: Sam Navarro/USA Today)