Japanese star Roki Sasaki is sent away and becomes the top target in Dodgers free agency

On the first day of October, two Dodgers executives found themselves on the other side of the world.

Shortly after the end of the regular season, President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman and Vice President of Player Personnel Galen Carr were on a reconnaissance trip to Japan.

At the center of their attention: the phenomenal pitcher Roki Sasaki.

For several years now, the Dodgers front office has idolized Sasaki, captivated by a dazzling repertoire led by a triple-digit fastball. The only question was when the right-hander would come across the Pacific.

Late Friday evening they finally got their answer.

Read more: One Sasaki throws hard, another hits homer. Will Rōki or Rintaro be the next Japanese MLB star?

The Chiba Lotte Marines, Sasaki’s team in the Nippon Professional Baseball League, announced they will sign the 23-year-old star to Major League Baseball teams this winter.

“When he joined the organization, he told us about his dream of playing in America,” Chiba Lotte general manager Naoki Matsumoto said in a press release in Japanese. “Taking into account the last five years as a whole, we decided to prioritize his thoughts. We hope he does his best as a representative of Japan. We cheer for him.”

The Dodgers’ offseason just got a lot more interesting in Los Angeles.

Although Sasaki doesn’t have the credentials of other top free agent pitchers in the big leagues, he is considered to have great potential and can be signed at a fraction of the cost thanks to MLB’s international free agent rules.

If Sasaki had waited two more years, he would have been allowed to sign like a normal free agent. Last winter, Yoshinobu Yamamoto received a record $325 million contract from the Dodgers, who came from Japan. Sasaki might have been able to take him on.

Read more: Hernandez: The Japanese teenager’s triple-digit fastball has some calling him the next Shohei Ohtani

However, because Sasaki is under 25, he is limited to a minor league contract with a modest signing bonus. Similar to when Shohei Ohtani, also 23 at the time, signed with the Angels for just $2.3 million before the 2018 season.

Like Ohtani, Sasaki, like any other rookie, will be under the control of the club for six seasons, whichever team he signs with.

It makes Sasaki a dream target for the Dodgers; a talented, young, cost-controlled arm to bolster – if not drastically improve – their starting rotation.

Over the past few seasons, the Dodgers have made significant scouting efforts to evaluate Sasaki’s development. Last winter, the team hoped he would be used. But after a protracted saga with his Japanese team, Sasaki finally stayed.

He had one of his most complete seasons, winning ten games with a 2.35 earned run average, the best of his career. And one of his best starts came on the day Friedman was present: a complete game with one run and 10 strikeouts.

“Well pitched,” was all Friedman wanted to reveal a few days later.

Now that Sasaki’s team is starting to draft him – his maximum singing bonus will reportedly depend on whether he’s placed in the 2024 or 2025 international signing class, but wouldn’t be much higher than Ohtani’s – it’s expected that he will be one of the Dodgers’ top offseason targets.

The team already boasts two Japanese stars, Ohtani and Yamamoto, who defied the notion that top Japanese players would prefer not to play on the same team. And the Dodgers would give Sasaki a chance to compete for a World Series title right away and enter 2025 as the defending champions and favorites — especially if they could improve their starting lineup.

“Of course, as we have learned, we can never have enough pitching,” general manager Brandon Gomes said Wednesday after the Dodgers won the title despite having one of the most injury-plagued pitching staffs. “That’s why pitching will be a priority.”

Gomes declined to talk about Sasaki during his media scrum at the general manager’s meetings in San Antonio because the pitcher had not yet been announced. But Sasaki’s potential speaks for itself.

While he had some durability issues in Japan, throwing more than 100 innings in only two of his four seasons, he had a 2.10 ERA and an average of 11.4 strikeouts per nine innings.

Read more: Shohei Ohtani’s labrum surgery could delay his return to pitching, but it shouldn’t affect his swing

“Since I joined the organization, I am only grateful that they have always listened to me about my future challenge in the MLB and have now given me permission to be posted,” Sasaki said in a statement in Japanese .

“In my five years in the Marines, there were many periods that didn’t go well, but I had the support of teammates, staff, the front office and fans at all times, and I was able to get to this point by just focusing on baseball. So that I don’t regret my one and only baseball career, and so that I can live up to the expectations of those who gave me a shove in the back, I’m doing my best to rise from a minor league contract to becoming the No. 1 baseball player in the world .”

To repeat: his goal is to become the best player in the world.

There will be a long line of teams trying to woo Sasaki. Like Ohtani, its low cost and highly touted capabilities will attract all sorts of potential suitors. But there is a lot of speculation in the industry that the Dodgers are the favorite to sign him.

You have Ohtani. You have Yamamoto. And they have been looking for Sasaki for several years, waiting for the moment when he could be next.

Staff columnist Dylan Hernandez contributed to this report.

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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.