NEW YORK — The New York Yankees have already advanced further in the free-agency process with Japanese pitching prospect Roki Sasaki than they did when two-way player Shohei Ohtani was posted by Nippon Professional Baseball’s Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in 2017.
The Yankees wanted Ohtani. They submitted a presentation to Nez Balelo, Ohtani’s agent, on what the organization could offer. But that was as far as they got in their courtship of the future superstar.
“We didn’t get any face time, and they eliminated everything east of the Mississippi,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said Wednesday. “We never really got a shot.”
Cashman will have a chance to land Sasaki, The Athletic’s No. 3 MLB free agent, in the coming weeks. Cashman told reporters that Sasaki has granted an in-person meeting with the Yankees. The timing of the meeting is still unknown, but his agent, Joel Wolfe, told reporters in Dallas during last week’s Winter Meetings that Sasaki was scheduled to return to Japan before Christmas and stay in his home country for one to two weeks.
The 2025 international amateur free agency window opens Jan. 15, the first day Sasaki is likely to sign. That’s when teams’ bonus pools reset. He has until Jan. 23 at 5 p.m. ET to sign with an MLB club. According to Baseball America, the Yankees have $6,261,600 to spend on amateur international free agents. If the Yankees were to sign Sasaki, he would likely take up all or most of their pool. The teams with the largest pools have $7.55 million to spend, but Wolfe said Sasaki would not choose a team based solely on which club could offer the most money, as the differences are negligible.
Signing Sasaki would be a massive win for the Yankees because he would be club-controlled until the 2030-31 offseason. And if he lives up to the hype, the Yankees might firmly solidify themselves as having the best starting rotation in MLB.
“He has a chance to be one of the world’s great pitchers,” Cashman said. “It would be nice to have Yankee Stadium be his home. It’ll be a decision up to him. All we can do is share everything and anything about ourselves and what we provide.”
Since the possibility of Sasaki getting posted by his NPB club, the Chiba Lotte Marines, first surfaced, the Los Angeles Dodgers were viewed as the favorites. The Dodgers and San Diego Padres are now considered his likeliest destinations. Wolfe, however, said Sasaki hadn’t told him that he preferred to stay on the West Coast. Wolfe did say it might be beneficial for Sasaki to choose a club with less exposure because of how he’s been treated by the media in Japan. Wolfe said Sasaki has been painted as disrespectful for wanting to leave Japan early, and the negative press has affected him mentally. New York is the biggest market in MLB with intense scrutiny from the media, but Wolfe said he believes Sasaki could handle the pressure if he chooses the Mets or Yankees.
“I think that there’s an argument to be made that a smaller, mid-market team might be more beneficial for him as a soft landing coming from Japan, given what he’s been through and not having an enjoyable experience with the media,” Wolfe said at the Winter Meetings. “It might be — I’m not saying it will be; I don’t know how he’s going to view it — but it might be beneficial for him to be in a smaller market. I really don’t know how he looks at it yet because I haven’t had a chance to really sit down and discuss it with him in great detail.”
The Yankees have had success with Japanese players, most notably 2009 World Series MVP Hideki Matsui and star pitcher Masahiro Tanaka. Matsui frequents Yankee Stadium and still has a close relationship with the club, and Tanaka was in New York for the World Series and still passionately roots for the Yankees. Tanaka, Yu Darvish and Daisuke Matsuzaka were three of the pitchers Sasaki idolized as a child. Darvish has staunchly advocated for Sasaki to join the Padres, which is why San Diego is viewed as a strong contender; the 23-year-old would have a willing mentor who’s arguably the greatest pitcher to come from Japan to MLB.
Cashman would not say if he would include Tanaka in their upcoming in-person meeting with Sasaki, but it certainly would not hurt the Yankees’ chances to include him in some capacity. The Yankees also have No. 18 available, if Sasaki were to sign. No. 18 is reserved for the best pitchers in Japan. That became a small selling point during last offseason when the Yankees gave Yoshinobu Yamamoto a No. 18 jersey during one of their meetings with him before he signed with the Dodgers.
The Yankees have intensely scouted Sasaki over the past several years, with nearly all of their highest-ranking officials making the trip to Japan, including Cashman. The Yankees plan to sell Sasaki on the idea of joining an organization that has every resource available to its players. He used an example from this past season, noting that Juan Soto was not interested in receiving any information about whether opposing pitchers were tipping their pitches. The Yankees didn’t force Soto to consume the information, but it was readily available. He also mentioned that if players aren’t interested in receiving analytical data, they aren’t forced to use it, but it’s there as an option. Left-handed starter Max Fried, who was introduced to the media Wednesday, said part of the reason he was interested in the Yankees was the club’s reputation for being one of the best at using analytics to help pitchers develop.
Cashman believes the Yankees have everything Sasaki could want. It’s now on him to sell that to the Japanese star.
“His intent is to be one of the game’s greatest pitchers on the planet,” Cashman said. “We certainly would love to participate in allowing that to happen.”
(Top photo from the 2023 World Baseball Classic: Yuichi Yamazaki / AFP via Getty Images)
