Brewers Could Have More Than Outside Chance in Roki Sasaki Sweepstakes

The Roki Sasaki sweepstakes officially opened on Tuesday. The Japanese phenom was posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines, opening a 45-day negotiating window for big-league teams.

By making the stateside jump now, Sasaki has already established that money is not his prime concern as he chooses his next club. Because he is just 23 years old, he’s limited to signing a minor-league deal with a signing bonus from a team’s international signing bonus pool as his only guaranteed money. After selecting his contract, that club can employ him for the standard six years of control before he hits free agency.

Those restrictions, along with rumblings in the weeks preceding his posting that an organization’s pitching development infrastructure matters more to Sasaki than its market size, created a glimmer of speculative hope that the Brewers could make a competitive pitch to the right-hander. Milwaukee has developed a reputation as an excellent landing spot for pitchers looking to elevate their game, and its $7,555,500 bonus pool for the 2025 international signing period is in the top tier of clubs.

Fresh comments by Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, may add more fuel to that fire. Speaking to reporters at the winter meetings in Dallas, Wolfe speculated that Sasaki’s tumultuous relationship with Japanese media while pitching for the Marines may sway him toward a “soft landing” with a small- or mid-market team.

While fans of small-market teams will undoubtedly use that soundbite to argue that their team’s odds of signing Sasaki just increased, such a conclusion is reading too much into Wolfe’s comments. He emphasized that he had not discussed market sizes with Sasaki. From his perspective, there’s no reason to publicly rule out any team on the first official day of the negotiation process.

At the same time, this is not just shallow posturing by Sasaki’s camp. Given the league-imposed financial limit on his eventual contract, he and Wolfe are almost certainly open to hearing as many pitches as possible that are not centered on money.

If the Brewers are interested in Sasaki, they won’t be competing on a level playing field with other organizations, but the slope isn’t nearly as steep as it usually is in pursuits of such a talent. It’s easy to whip up potential ideas they may have for refining what is widely regarded as some of the best stuff in professional baseball.

Sasaki’s arsenal is headlined by a powerful fastball with triple-digit velocity. When he appeared in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, it averaged 100.3 mph with 16.8 inches of induced vertical break and 12 inches of horizontal break. On top of being blazing fast, that’s a unique fastball shape. Most pitchers excel at generating carry or run on their primary fastball, but rarely both; Sasaki’s four-seamer has above-average carry and run. However, its velocity and total movement took steps back in 2024 amid speculation over an arm injury.

His signature pitch is a unique upper-80s splitter. Because of its gyroscopic spin (the same kind of spin as a football spiral), it often sharply drops straight down or cuts to his glove side instead of fading arm-side like most splitters. Sasaki’s third pitch is a slider with up to one foot of sweeping movement but an inconsistent shape.

The Brewers emphasize throwing multiple fastballs to maximize deception. They might do the same for Sasaki by splitting his heater into two pitches – a riding four-seamer he can use at the top of the zone and a sinker he can throw at the bottom and run inside on right-handed batters. Because his splitter often behaves like a short bullet slider, finding a breaking ball shape that does not overlap with it should be the top priority for any team that acquires him.

Sasaki has no shortage of suitors, but if he’s looking for a winning organization with the resources to help him improve, the Brewers can make a competitive pitch. Don’t expect them to land him, but know they have a better shot at this free-agent talent than they usually do.