Roki Sasaki is the next Japanese superstar ready to make his presence known in the MLB next season, and all 30 teams in the league have taken notice and are ready to try to successfully recruit the 23-year-old out of Bizen, Japan, who will be an international free agent in the coming days.
Japan has had a long tradition of MLB superstars over the past seven decades. Beginning in 1964 when the San Francisco Giants signed pitcher Masanori Murakami through Hideo Nomo, Hideki Matsui, Ichiro Suzuki, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Masataka Yoshida, Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamato, MLB teams have strongly benefited from Japanese’s finest baseball talent throughout the years. The Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers all won World Series titles in part of the play of Matsuzaka, Matsui, Ohtani and Yamato, respectively.
And now there’s Sasaki, the 6-foot-4 right-handed pitcher who has had a dominant but short career in his time for the Chiba Lotte Marines in the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB) in Japan.Â
In 2019, he was a first-round draft out of Ofunato High School in Iwate Prefecture. In his high school baseball career, Sasaki threw a 101 mph fastball. His fastball velocity broke the previous high school record of 99 mph set by Ohtani in 2012.
NPB career
In his four years in the NPB, Sasaki compiled a record of 29-15 with a 2.10 earned run average and 505 strikeouts in 64 appearances. He was a two-time NPB All-Star in 2022 and 2023. In 2024, he finished with a 10-5 record with a 2.35 ERA with 129 strikeouts in 18 starts for Chiba.
He has made history in Japan and the world in the short time that he has been there. On April 10, 2022, Sasaki pitched a perfect game as Chiba defeated the Orix Buffaloes 6-0. His win was also notable as he tied Koji Noda’s 19 strikeouts in a game which is an NPB record. Sasaki set a new NPB record with 13 consecutive strikeouts in a row. It also was a new world record as he surpassed the 10 consecutive strikeouts in a game by Tom Seaver, Aaron Nola and Corbin Burnes. It was also the 16th perfect game in NPB history and the first since Hiromi Makihara’s in 1994.
Sasaki followed up his perfect game by pitching eight perfect innings with 14 strikeouts against the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters on April 17. He was taken out in the ninth inning after throwing 102 pitches to protect his arm. Sasaki threw 105 pitches in his previous start. Chiba would win the game 1-0 in 10 innings. He retired 52 consecutive batters which set an NPB and a world record. Sasaki surpassed former MLB pitcher Yusmeiro Petit, who retired 46 consecutive batters in 2014.
World Baseball Classic
Sasaki was part of a formidable pitching staff for Team Japan in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. It featured Ohtani, Yamamoto, San Diego Padres pitching stars Yu Darvish and Yuki Matsui and 2024 National League All-Rookie Team member and Chicago Cubs pitcher Shota Imanaga. Japan won the WBC with a 3-2 win over Team USA. They had a 7-0 record and outscored their opponents 56-18. Sasaki pitched in a 10-2 win over the Czech Republic and a 6-5 victory over Mexico. He had a 1-0 record with a 3.52 ERA with 11 strikeouts in two appearances in the tournament.
Pitching strengths
Sasaki is a powerful pitcher with a number of different pitches at his disposal. On April 28, 2023, he threw four pitches at 102.5 mph which tied a record by Ohtani as the fastest pitches ever thrown by an NPB pitcher. He also has an 88.2 mph splitter and 83.6 slider along with a four-seam fastball that averages 96.8 mph per game. Sasaki is very versatile and can potentially be a very successful pitcher in the MLB next season.