Yoshinobu Yamamoto Played Key Role in Dodgers Signing Roki Sasaki
The Los Angeles Dodgers have won the offseason for the second year in a row.
Roki Sasaki, the crown jewel of the baseball world, is someone that the Dodgers have been interested in signing for a while now.
He is 23 years old with less than six years of professional experience under his belt, constricting him to only sign a minor league deal, with the international bonus pool each MLB team has as a potential signing bonus.
The Dodgers, who ranked lowest in the league in bonus pool money at the time of Sasaki’s second meeting with the team, did everything in their power to try and squeeze every possible penny in the direction of the phenom.
This included putting all of their 2025 signees on hold and telling them to wait a calendar year before signing, losing would-be prospects for this very reason, and even making two trades that included international bonus pool space to give Sasaki a larger signing bonus.
Although money was said to not be a major factor in the phenom’s decision to come to MLB, something else that was an added to this unprecedented race is straight out of grade school: A homework assignment.
Sasaki gave interested teams an ‘unspecified homework assignment’ to “show how they can analyze and communicate information with him, and really showed where he was coming from in analyzing and creating his selection criteria, in looking at different teams,” said agent Joel Wolfe.
The Dodgers had less money to offer than other teams, the same assignment given as other teams, but still ended up with the 23-year-old pitcher. There has to have been another advantage for L.A.
The advantage, after the smoke was cleared and the deal was agreed upon, was another free agent pitcher who signed with Los Angeles upon his arrival from Japan: Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Yamamoto, a teammate with Sasaki on the Japan national team during their gold medal run in the World Baseball Classic, was reportedly “playing an important role in whether the Dodgers land him,” Dodgers Nation’s Doug McKain reported just one day after L.A.’s second meeting with the right-hander.
MLB Network’s Jon Morosi seemed to agree. He was told, “In the last 24 hours that a really key conversation in the midst of the courtship of Sasaki came between Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki.”
While Shohei Ohtani is arguably the best Japanese player in MLB history, Yamamoto is much closer to Sasaki in age. While both stars played a role in Sasaki joining the Dodgers, it makes sense that the pitcher who made the transition from Japan to MLB just one year ago would have a strong impact on Sasaki’s decision.
Sasaki has a career ERA of 2.10 in Nippon Professional Baseball, along with 505 strikeouts to only 88 walks across four seasons.
Now, he’ll join Ohtani and Yamamoto to complete a formidable trio of Japanese stars on the Dodgers.
Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
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