Japanese star pitcher Roki Sasaki to be made available to MLB teams with Mets, Yankees interested

A Monster is coming to Major League Baseball, and the Yankees and Mets — and truly all 28 other teams — will be interested.

Roki Sasaki, the “Monster of the Reiwa Era,” will get his wish to pitch in the majors next season.

The Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball announced overnight they intend to make the star starting pitcher available through the posting system that will make Sasaki the kind of bargain even tiny markets can fit into a budget.

The right-hander throws 100 mph, is renowned for a devastating splitter and turned 23 last week. He is so determined to pitch in the majors that he will arrive before his dream contract arrives.

If Sasaki waited two years, he would be treated as a full-fledged, professional free agent and could seek the kind of 12-year, $325 million mega-deal that Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed with the Dodgers last December.

Sasaki was not willing to wait and will come to the majors subject to international bonus pool restrictions — he will be treated as an amateur who can only earn a few million in a signing bonus while agreeing to a minor league contract (though his chosen team surely will add him to the major league roster).

Instead of the Yamamoto path, Sasaki will follow the one taken by Shohei Ohtani, who came to MLB at 23 and signed with the Angels for $2.3 million.

Sasaki had requested to be posted last offseason and was denied by the Marines, who are financially hurt by Sasaki’s desire to play in MLB immediately.

Whichever major league team lures Sasaki will owe the Marines 20 percent of the total guaranteed value of the contract — a much smaller sum than if he waited a couple more years to cash in.

“Since joining the team, the team has continued to listen to my thoughts about my future challenge in the MLB, and I am very grateful to the team for now officially allowing me to post,” Sasaki said, through an Internet translation, in a Marines release early Saturday. “There were many things that did not go well during my five years with the Marines, but I was always supported by my teammates, staff, front office, and fans, and was able to come this far by concentrating only on baseball.

“I will do my best to work my way up from my minor contract to become the best player in the world, so that I will have no regrets in this one and only baseball career, and so that I can live up to the expectations of everyone who has supported me this time.”

It is unclear when, exactly, the Marines will post Sasaki, and the timing will dictate whether he is classified in the 2024 or 2025 international amateur class — which will matter.

The 2024 period ends Dec. 15, and the 2025 period begins Jan. 15. Teams only have a limited pool of money to play with, and most is spent heavily toward Latin American prospects in January.

According to the Associated Press, the Dodgers — who were the favorites regardless — have the largest chunk of bonus pool remaining for this period at about $2.5 million.

The Orioles are second at around $2.15 million, and the Yankees third at about $1.5 million. The Mets reportedly have $314,000 left. The Marines could wait to post Sasaki until the new signing period, when teams’ allotments are not as depleted.

Whenever he is posted, Sasaki will have 45 days to talk with clubs and decide where he wants to play. The Dodgers — who are the World Series champions, and have Ohtani and Yamamoto as recruiters and two-fifths of their rotation — are the front-runners. Mets president David Stearns visited Japan in September to get a look at Sasaki, who could team with Kodai Senga at the front of a rotation that needs replenishing. The Yankees, who are hoping to win the Juan Soto sweepstakes, could spend hundreds of millions on one free agent and still have space for a player who would earn relative pennies.

But unlike the Soto derby — in which every team theoretically should be interested, but plenty will be scared off by the money — the entirety of Major League Baseball will try to make its pitch toward a pitcher who is seen as the most talented in Japan and is desperate to test those talents here.

In four seasons in NPB, Sasaki has pitched to a 2.10 ERA with 505 strikeouts in 394 ²/₃ innings.

If there were any doubts about his ability and competition level, he showed filthy stuff in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, when his first start on U.S. soil included 102 mph heat to strike out Randy Arozarena and a four-seamer that averaged 101.5 mph in a Japan win over Mexico.

“[Sasaki] is a unique talent,” Stearns said last week at the GM meetings. “He’s 23 and throws 100 [mph] and a nasty splitter.”