His command is always shockingly inconsistent. His explanations are starting to sound like excuses.
Roki Sasaki has done little this spring to inspire confidence that he will be a successful first baseman this season.
But he will be on the Dodgers’ opening day roster.
“He’s going to be one of our starters,” manager Dave Roberts told reporters this week.
Asked by Bill Plunkett of the Southern California New Group if Sasaki was one of the group’s top 13 hitters, Roberts gave a non-answer.
“He will start the season in rotation,” said Roberts.
In other words, no.
That doesn’t mean the Dodgers shouldn’t have a 24-year-old on their big league roster. Just because they technically have the right to option Sasaki to the minor leagues doesn’t mean they should.
Sasaki trusted them when he chose to play for them. Regardless of whether they believe he will succeed, they now owe their second-year right fielder the same honor.
Doing the right thing by Sasaki is in the best interest of everyone involved – for Sasaki, who believes he can start in the big leagues, and for the Dodgers, whose dealings with him could have an impact on how Japanese players are viewed in the future.
Assessing the Dodgers’ position with Sasaki requires revisiting the circumstances under which he was signed.
Because he was only 23 years old when the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Japanese league made him available to major league teams ahead of the 2025 season, he was classified as an international player. As such, Sasaki can only sign a minor league contract.
The hefty price tag makes Sasaki the most coveted Japanese free agent in history outside of Shohei Ohtani.
Yu Darvish and Daisuke Matsuzaka were compared to Sasaki in stature when they moved to the state, but each cost their major league teams more than $100 million.
Sasaki could have fetched $200 million on the open market. The Dodgers only got him a $6.5-million bonus.
The rules prohibited teams from making any promises to Sasaki about a future contract or roster spot, but the Dodgers had to know they were taking on unspecified responsibilities when they signed him.
Here is a pitcher who is considered the most talented pitcher his country has ever produced, one who is being chased by other teams as a top starter.
The quality of the idea they are selling Sasaki was evident in his introductory press conference when president of baseball Andrew Friedman said he would be part of the rotation starting in his rookie season. There has been talk of a Cy Young Award and comparisons to Paul Skenes.
Sasaki exploded in the regular season last year.
Perhaps it was because his preparations were rushed to start the Dodgers’ season-opening series in Tokyo. Maybe it was because of an unknown aspect of the big league game like the batting clock or smooth American baseball. Maybe it’s the shoulder problem that kept him out for four months.
Or maybe he wasn’t as good as the Dodgers thought.
He was able to salvage the year by returning as a reliever in the final week of the regular season.
He became a household name in October, his festive entrance music and 100 mph fastball making him a crowd favorite. Although he did not play in each passing round, he was undoubtedly the main reason why the Dodgers won the World Series.
Another thing to keep in mind: Sasaki agreed to be released on the condition that he be given a chance to start this year.
The Dodgers respect their arrangement, and it’s important that they do.
The truth is that Americans are viewed as particularly unreliable in many parts of the world, and that perception is reinforced every time an outfielder and his major league team have completely different interpretations of the same deal.
In Sasaki’s case, he’s clearly expecting to be offered the luxury of treating spring training as a testing time to prepare for the regular season rather than prove anything.
He wouldn’t be the only Japanese player to manage an exhibition season like this.
Ichiro Suzuki was famously skeptical of his manager in his first major league camp. Ohtani was compared to a high school hitter in a Yahoo Sports article that cited several scouts who broke down his disappointing Cactus League performance.
Sasaki has a 13.50 earned run average in three starts, but he didn’t sound worried.
“If I can hit for the rest of the season,” Sasaki told reporters after his latest Cactus League game, “I don’t think anyone will remember spring training.”
The Dodgers are giving him the same opportunity the Angels once gave Ohtani to prove the naysayers wrong, and why not?
Sasaki doesn’t push Tarik Skubal into the rotation.
Sasaki’s place comes at the expense of River Ryan, whose career the team will monitor closely this year because he is coming back from Tommy John surgery.
What happens from here is completely up to Sasaki.
He won’t be able to point the finger at the Dodgers for letting him down as well as he thought everything would come together. He can’t complain about how they didn’t trust him after he told him how much they believed in him.
If he fails, this will be entirely on him.
