Mike Salas
There have been many reports from Twitter/X that Roki Sasaki is planning to sign with the Dodgers when the 2024 NPB season is over. Per Bob Nightengales’s USA Today’s Around the Basepaths article today, “one of the best pitchers in the world already has plans to sign with the Dodgers after the season”. It’s a little more difficult than saying Roki Sasaki wants to move to the MLB after 2024.
The Los Angeles Dodgers have been watching Roki Sasaki’s career for some time now. With the current signings of Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani, it seems Sasaki is contemplating coming out early. After long negotiations between Sasaki and Chiba Lotte, both sides came to a one-year contract agreement before the 2024 season started. The contract agreement details still need to be discovered and have yet to be posted by Chiba Lotte.
Roki Sasaki is entering his third full year in the NPB and could be available for posting at the end of the 2024 season. According to the current posting rules and MLB collective bargaining agreement, Sasaki would be viewed as an international amateur and eligible to enter MLB on a minor league contract with a signing bonus.
How it works:
Players who are classified as “professionals”, such as a foreign player, must be at least 25 years old and have at least six seasons of experience in the NPB before they can become an overseas free agent. Yoshinobu Yamamoto met those requirements and signed as a free agent to a 12-year $325 million dollar contract with the Dodgers.
Players are posted from November first to December fifth, both the team and player must agree on the posting. An NPB team notifies the MLB Commissioner of a posting, with the posting fee determined by the value of the contract that a posted player eventually signs with an MLB organization. Once the MLB Commissioner announces the posting, the player has 30 days to sign with an MLB team. Unlike the past system, in which only the team that won the bidding process had negotiating rights, the current system allows the posted player to negotiate with any MLB team willing to pay the posting fee. The signing team will pay the posting fee if the player signs with an MLB team during the negotiating window.
For players signed to MLB contracts, the posting fee is based on the amount of guaranteed money in the initial contract:
- 20% of the first $25 million
- 17.5% of the next $25 million
- 15% of any amount above $50 million
For players signed to minor-league contracts, the fee is a flat 25% of the contract’s value.
If Sasaki is not 25 years old and has played in NPB for at least six seasons, a deal for him would be counted toward the international bonus money restrictions. Under the new CBA, teams have at least $4.75 million to spend. Those with a Competitive Balance Round A receive $5.25 million and those with a Competitive Balance Round B pick receive $5.75 million. Bonus pool money can be traded up to a maximum of roughly $10.1 million per MLB.
With all that, you can see how difficult it will be for Chiba Lotte Marines to agree with Sasaki on being posted early. The Marines will lose millions in posting fees at the end of the 2024 season, and it all depends on Sasaki’s new one-year contract whether Chiba Lotte will let him be posted.
For Dodgers Beat, I’m Mike Salas
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