The Phillies are “in the mix” for superstar pitcher Roki Sasaki, per Jim Bowden of The Athletic:

The 23-year-old Japanese phenomenon is one of the best starting pitchers on the market. Sasaki has been a workhorse in the Japanese Pacific League for the last three years. He posted a 2.02 ERA in 20 games in 2022, a 1.78 ERA in 15 games in 2023, and a 2.35 ERA in 18 games in 2024. He struck out 437 batters in 331.1 innings the last three seasons while walking just 72. He had a 12.0 K9 in 2022, 13.4 in 2023, and 10.5 in 2024.

The Phillies are not the favorites to land Sasaki at all. The Dodgers and the Padres have that crown, due to their location. But I continue to stress how deep in the pitching market the Phillies are. We’ve now gotten rumors on Blake Snell, Garrett Crochet, Sasaki, and more. It’s blatantly obvious that Dave Dombrowski is continuing to look to improve his already-elite rotation.

It’s going to be hard for an East Coast team to land a Japanese player like Sasaki; but the Phillies have now shown two years in a row that they are going to continue to try and build their relationship with the Japanese Baseball League and Japanese players. They reportedly offered a $325M contract to Yoshinobu Yamamoto last year before he signed with the Dodgers. Will they land Sasaki? Probably not. But it’s good to see them in the market for these players.

Sasaki was posted this morning. A team has until January 23rd to sign him. The closed period begins on December 15th and ends on January 15th. Sasaki plans to wait until the 2025 international amateur signing period starts on the 1/15, per Thomas Harrigan of MLB.com.


Jonathan Mayo, also of MLB.com, added this:

“Sasaki is subject to international bonus pool money restrictions, as he’s under 25 and has less than six seasons of service time in a foreign league recognized by MLB. So we won’t be seeing a Yamamoto type of deal here (12 years, $325 million). This is similar to when Ohtani came here in 2017, when he received a bonus of $2.3 million from the Angels”