📅 Published on: 2024-11-23 17:00:39
⏱ Duration: 00:13:09 (789 seconds)
👀 Views: 20052 | 👍 Likes: 1191
📝 Video Description:
Meet the 23-year old Japanese phenom, who’s giving up millions of dollars for a chance to compete against the best baseball players in the world. With a blockbuster contract off the table, any MLB team has a serious shot at landing his talents.
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Music (in order):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ0wdRKEh-w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIlsiAyZh5Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXjdGX84Hp0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQWFdnbzlgI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzCw4RyFqHo
Sources (in order):
Jake Mintz, Yahoo, 2024: https://sports.yahoo.com/why-is-roki-sasaki-such-a-big-deal-lets-dive-in-225250951.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAN1idFBUDDAeiggDPBruiV3SYwTjirBbzIcf0UelbHnl8Hzq4mIT4KSoUHN4WMirRuQEEPqSNj_6mISW9l3UKVoFHboGoBo4aQIOlXk5e15x2_7sIAj1QsfJiDIA014-D7IzbA_MQP8iCYjRz04BCdFhXLELSIAG7MH9LvI7qLRp
Dylan Hernandez, LA Times, 2019: https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2019-07-25/rouki-sasaki-japanese-pitcher-next-ohtani
Kyodo News, 2022: https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2022/03/ae31ca4d86e6-baseball-marines-sasaki-thankful-for-support-after-2011-disaster.html
Daniel Chavkin, Sports Illustrated, 2022: https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/04/10/roki-sasaki-npb-perfect-game-19-strikeouts
Kyle Glaser, Baseball America, 2023: https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/roki-sasaki-is-about-to-get-his-close-up-at-the-world-baseball-classic/
Jonathan Mayo, MLB, 2024: https://www.mlb.com/news/roki-sasaki-faq
Anthony Franco, MLBTR, 2024: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/08/latest-on-roki-sasakis-potential-posting.html
#MLB #Dodgers #Padres
🎙 Channel: Jolly Olive
🌍 Channel Country: United States
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🕵️♂️ Transcript:
Roki Sasaki who is he what is he why is he at age 23 Roki Sasaki has become a Japanese phenomenon and he appears to be next in line and was become an impressive list of overseas baseball players making the journey over to MLB looking to dominate new competition after setting records with his groundbreaking velocity tossing Japan’s first perfect game in nearly three decades and helping team Japan win the 2023 World Baseball Classic Roki Sasaki has decided to forego a potential Blockbuster free agent contract to come to America earlier than anyone expected with a nine figure price tag feasibly off the table any MLB team could be in competition for Roki saki services so let’s figure out who this guy is what he brings to the table and where he’s going to end up in 2025 it’s rare that we hural a high school athlete as the next big thing because it’ll come back to bite you more than you expect but some of the best case examples like LeBron James or Bryce Harper have not only lived up to the billing but exceeded it Roki Sasaki fell into this category over in Japan deemed the next show hotani at just 17 years old and with very good reason he quickly became one of the most famous High School talents in Japanese baseball history with his 101 mph fastball making headlines when he was just 17 years old breaking the record previously set by Sho Otani not long before in his senior year pushing a lackluster high school team to reach the National Tournament Sasaki had the week of a lifetime he first pitched a six inning no hitter then just two days later pitched a 12 ining complete game where he hurled 100 194 pitches and also hit the game-winning two run Homer while his team missed out on that National Tournament Roki Sasaki knew that baseball was a retreat from real life long before it was a mastered craft when he was just 9 years old he tragically lost his father his grandparents and his childhood home during the horrible earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March of 2011 it’s a burden that he still carries now noting in a 2022 interview that it’s been 11 years but he still cannot easily erase the agony and sadness that he felt at the time removed from his childhood home and placed in a nursing home for the duration of his upbringing Sasaki found baseball as an escape from a hellish reality soon that escape became a destiny Roki Sasaki was selected first overall in the 2019 nppb draft by the chalot Marines he wouldn’t make his League debut until two years later though immediately Turning Heads as a rookie with his already established electric heater a diving split finger that’s become something of a signature among dominant Japanese Aces and a wipe out slider that showed flashes of Greater potential but after his firste campaign where his numbers were great his sophomore season elevated his status to utterly dominant for evidence of this you need to look no further than their 13th game of the 2022 regular season in a matchup with the orc buffalos led by masataka Yoshida who’d be bound for the Boston Red Sox in a year’s time the buffalos were coming off a first place finish in the Pacific league and their first Japan series appearance since 1996 this lineup was no joke and I think everybody in the building knew that except for rooki suzaki the 20-year-old fireballer made minc meat of his opponents striking out Yoshida to end the first frame then he struck out the side in the second inning then he did it again in the third inning and then he did it again in the fourth inning and then he did it again in the fifth inning Sasaki not only set the world record for consecutive strikeouts with 13 in a row he shattered it with the previous record set by Aaron Nola Corbin Burns and Tom Siver of 10 being blown out of the water Sasaki finished a perfect game with his 19th punch out against utaro sugimoto the npb’s Home Run King from the year prior Sasaki punched out masataka Yosh three times in this game a batter who struck out the least amount of times of any qualified hitter in Japan in the 2022 season Roki sasaki’s seismic performance ended a 28-year perfect game drought in Japan what’s even crazier is that in his next start Sasaki lengthened his streak of perfection tossing eight more perfect Innings against the Hokkaido nip onam Fighters his manager Chicago White Sox World Series champion tadahito Uchi took Sasaki out of the game before he could get to the ninth inning robbing him of the chance of becoming the only pitcher ever with back-to-back perfect games but sasaki’s performance was symbolic in a strange way while he conquered Fierce competition in the oric buffalos that same Buffalo team would go on to win the Japan series that year while sasaki’s Marines would go on to finish fifth place in their own division very far away from even a playoff birth this came in spite of Sasaki putting together one of the best pitching seasons in recent Japanese baseball history his 2.02 ER is a top six Mark of any qualified starter in Japan in the 2020s alongside some names he’d recognize like kodai senga and yoshinobu Yamamoto despite having made the playoffs with the Marines before perhaps team success is one of the contributing reasons why Roki Sasaki feels like he’s ready to come to MLB he’s hungry for the biggest stage possible and he’s already shown all of us that he’s seemingly ready for that challenge with his performance in the 2023 World Baseball Classic alongside shoh Otani and yoshinobu Yamamoto Sasaki was a member of Team Japan in the tournament the roster that would end up taking home the gold medal he dominated the Czech Republic striking out eight of his 11 batters fac and allowing zero earned runs facing a tougher challenge in the semi-finals against team Mexico suzaki was hit around a bit more surrendering three runs in four Innings of work but still his performance impressed many American eyes who were watching him work for the first time some Anonymous Scouts from baseball America even compared him to a young Prospect form of Steven straber who of course went first overall and was dominant for a decade in MLB this excited many at the prospect of him coming over to the us though many including myself didn’t believe that he’d bypass a massive free agent deal to instead go through the complicated posting system yet here we are so before we get into this whole MLB situation and free agency and all that let’s figure out what exactly makes saki so dominant it’s not just that he throws hard and has breaking pitches that play off it well but additionally his breaking pitches are almost one of a kind in Lance bro das’s grain analysis of Roki sasaki’s pitch data Lance provides a great visual representation of what makes Sasaki splitter different some of the best Splitters in MLB like that of kodai senga yoshin noo Yamoto Logan Gilbert and and Kevin gsman move downward after tunneling a fast ball shape which is considered traditional but still effective Roki suzaki splitter not only breaks downward but it also breaks horizontally giving it a cutting effect that basically no other pitcher can emulate this coupled with the fact that his fastball blows out the average metrics of an mlb4 seamer albeit with a different baseball used in Japan and you have a picture that profiles to be uniquely dominant at the MLB level if he can stay healthy but that if is a big if because even right now there are question circling around sasaki’s Health According to Jim Bowen’s article for the athletic posted this year sasaki’s velocity was actually down 2 to three ticks in 2024 dealing with an oblique issue and shoulder fatigue it’s no secret that Sasaki won’t be deployed without some precautions regardless of or signs with many suggesting an Innings limit no higher than 130 frames for his inaugural season most starting pitches that average a similar velocity to what Sasaki is capable of end up going down with significant arm injuries at some point in their career even if you just take a look at the top 10 leaders for fastball velocity from last season all 10 of these guys have suffered some sort of serious injury whether it’s to their throwing arm or some other body part granted Sasaki has always been handled carefully too ever since that 192 pitch complete game that I mentioned before he only pitched in workouts in 2020 which should have been his rookie season and he was lifted from the game on the cusp of his second straight perfecta with pitch count concerns he’s never exceeded 130 innings in any professional season of his career and though someone like yobu Yamamoto pitched just 108 Innings between the regular season and playoffs combined in his first MLB go the understanding is that someone like Yamamoto is capable of a much larger workload at this current point in time the same cannot be said for Roki Sasaki with all of that in mind at the end of his brief tenure in the npb Sasaki has pitched over 400 Innings to the tune of an ER near two a whip below 0.9 and a strikeout rate of over 11 batters for every nine innings these numbers are simply absurd especially considering the amount of time he’s been able to sustain them over heading towards his age 23 campaign Sasaki likely could have broke more records won more Awards and become even more of a Japanese icon than he already is but instead he’s opting for a more daunting path becoming a Global Athletic icon on the biggest stage possible with the toughest competition possible so let’s try and figure out what team he’s going to try and accomplish that all with before we go on with today’s video I got to thank picket for sponsoring today’s video picket is an app where you can centralize all your sports betting into one place the tells you what teams Players Sports and bet types you’re most profitable on if you’re a stat nerd like myself this is a great way to keep track of your data when you’re sports betting you can also see your friends bets and our bets if you feel like tailing or fading us download the picket app right now and use promo code johnboy and that way you can earn $3 or $100 paid directly to your PayPal or venmo scan the QR code on the screen or go to Pik kit.com today thanks to pick it for sponsoring today’s video now let’s get back to Roki Sasaki Roki Sasaki has made the decision to leave Japan early had he waited until age 25 suzaki could have entered the market as an international free agent and had the chance to earn a blockbuster free agent contract for example Shota imanaga waited and received $53 million from the Cubs kodai senga waited and received $75 million from the Mets masataka Yoshida waited and received $90 million from the Red Sox and of course yoshinobu Yamamoto waited and received a record setting $325 million from the Dodgers it’s an understatement to say that Sasaki has left an absurd amount of money on the table and I want that to be known being posted now Roki Sasaki is limited to rookie status as an MLB player meaning he can only earn the major league minimum salary plus a signing bonus that is capped depending on what the team’s budget is for amateur spending that latter piece of information could be the reason why we won’t know where Roki Sasaki is signing until January the current International amateur signing period ends in December and a new period with new higher bonus pools will begin in mid January so when Sasaki sign the highest possible bonus that select teams can offer him will exceed no more than $7.5 million life-changing money for sure but not nearly as much as the Japanese Superstars that preceded him it’s honestly a shock that the Marines even agreed to post him this offseason being that the organization has a lot more to gain if they held him on until after his age 25 season apparently their rejection of his posting request a year ago soured the relationship between player and team but for reference the Oro buffalos received a $50 million payout from the the Dodgers when they finalize the signing of yoshinobu Yamamoto so this is a fairly complicated situation but with all this information at hand I think I’m ready to make my prediction on where Roki Sasaki is going to sign my prediction the Colorado Rockies why because they have one thing they can offer him that no one else can they can change their name to the Colorado RIS thank you for watching today’s video please subscribe if I had to make a guess based on the information we have I would narrow down the destination to about four different teams the most popular pick right now is the Dodgers and while I do include them I think there is a chance they can lose out for a couple Reasons I’m not sure that Sasaki wants to play in the shadow of both Yamamoto and Otani and this could also limit the potential endorsement deals for him in his early MLB years since he wouldn’t even be the most dominant Japanese player on his own team I also have Sasaki wanting to play for a team that’s already competitive and not in the midst of a rebuild which means I have teams like the Mets Yankees and Orioles getting a more favorable shot at bringing him on all of whom fall into the second and third tier of the international budget in 25 while I reiterate that the Dodgers are The Logical safe pick I defer from that to make things a little interesting here while I don’t fully believe it I also don’t fully doubt that Roki Sasaki won’t end up with the San Diego Padres this is a theory but I have to imagine that the prospect of directly competing against his Japanese Superstar counterparts and joining baseball’s most intense rivalry could be an enticing factor in his decision rookie szaki also has a pre-existing relationship with longtime Padre’s acce darish who helped him refine the pitch grip of his slider they have had a long standing relationship and darish has also been lobbying for sasaki’s presence for a while the Padre’s also have a more present need for RI Sasaki with Joe Musgrove missing all of next year with Tommy John surgery whereas the Dodgers presently have 10 decent starting pitching options and will likely add another this off season it kind of depends on what kind of competitor Roki susaki is if he wants the comfort of an existing World Series champion with countrymen that are just as talented as he is that he can play alongside then it’s going to be the Dodgers but if he wants that rivalry to make a name for himself and carve out his own Niche and own star status in MLB I think a lot of teams have a chance but if nothing else I hope this video gave you a little bit of clarity into his situation who he is and what he brings to the table in 2025 if you enjoyed the video please consider leaving a like and subscribing to my YouTube channel I’d really appreciate it it goes a long way but that’ll do it for me and I’ll see you guys next time [Music]
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