What started as a straightforward development project has turned into a very complex one.
Now that Roki Sasaki has been demoted, the Dodgers must rebuild.
How they do that, or whether that’s even possible, is anyone’s guess, but it’s what the Dodgers signed up to not knowing when they beat out 29 other major league teams to sign the Japanese fireballer.
Because Sasaki is broken.
He doesn’t know why he can’t throw strikes. He doesn’t know if he will be able to do that when he starts his first season next week.
An exhibition season in which he registered a 15.58 ERA shook his confidence when he sounded open to spending time in the minor leagues.
“If that’s the decision, if that’s better, I think it’s right,” Sasaki said in Japanese.
After another poor start to the Freeway Series on Monday night, Sasaki didn’t feel like it could be fixed overnight. By the looks of it, the 24-year-old right-hander will have to return to form, and the Dodgers may have to invest years in him before he can do anything for them at the big league level.
The magnitude of what he was up against began to dawn on him after his debut against the Angels. Failing to record a single in the first inning, he dismissed any pretense about the results of spring training as completely useless.
Pitchers were allowed to re-enter the exhibition games, and Sasaki was returned to the mound for the second inning. He entered the fourth inning, but nothing about his performance inspired hope.
Sasaki walked six batters in two-plus innings. He opened each of the four innings he started with a walk or hit by pitch.
Of the 66 pitches he threw, only 32 were strikes.
A major league scout in attendance said Sasaki reminded him of Shintaro Fujinami, a Japanese major league standout who was considered the equal of Shohei Ohtani as a pitcher before he suddenly couldn’t find his pitches.
As bad as that was, manager Dave Roberts said Sasaki remains in line to start the Dodgers’ fourth game of the regular season, against the Cleveland Guardians.
“I believe in him,” said Roberts. “Really. I told him that while I was in the hole.”
But Roberts admitted that including Sasaki on the move was about finding out what they had in him.
“That’s a big driver of that,” Roberts said.
The Dodgers are not alone in the uncertainty of where Sasaki is on the development curve. Sasaki doesn’t seem to know either.
Sasaki is uncontrollably confused, explaining that he wasn’t playing especially well when he was warming up in the barn before the match.
Was he overthinking?
“Part of it is that, but there are many aspects,” Sasaki said. “Technical elements are what change. I can do the same if I can understand what changes when there are batsmen in front of me.
What did he think had changed?
“If that was clear, it would be easy,” he said.
The Dodgers encouraged Sasaki to expand his arsenal by adding a pitch to his glove side, but he didn’t think that contributed to his command problems.
Asked about his current level of confidence, or lack thereof, Sasaki mentioned how he’s held his pace better than last year. His fastball averaged 97.1 mph against the Angels.
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“But I think that how much I can release to hitters will depend not only on the preparation I do in practice but also on how I combine successful experiences in games,” he said. “I think that would be difficult.”
Where Sasaki starts the season doesn’t matter in the long run. At some point he will end up in the minor leagues.
Once there, the Dodgers’ job will be to guide him back to where he was in his prime, as a 20- or 21-year-old player who dominates the Japanese league. Either that, or they’ll have to help him find a new identity as a pitcher.
This could not have been what the Dodgers had in mind when they signed him before last season. Their visions of him winning the Cy Young Award, comparing him to Paul Skenes, all of that feels so far away now.
But if there was a positive development here, it was that Sasaki understood the truth of his situation. The first step to fixing a problem is admitting there is a problem, and Sasaki has done just that. The question now is whether the Dodgers can offer him solutions.
