The excitement over Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki coming to Major League Baseball should be tempered by the likelihood that his signing will produce unintended consequences — teenage Latin American prospects who will be abandoned by the team that signs him.
Sasaki, 23, might be a top-of-the-rotation starter as soon as next season. The current international signing period ends Dec. 15. If, as expected, he delays his choice until the next period, which opens Jan. 15, the team he picks almost certainly will expend its entire bonus pool on him, breaking pre-existing verbal commitments with Latin American players who are further away from the majors.
Depriving those players of life-changing money isn’t right. And baseball should not allow it to happen.
The system for signing international players is broken, has been for a long time. Since teams are restricted in what they can spend on those players, many budget out agreements well in advance of the opening of the international signing period, trying to maximize their bonus pool allotment. Players cannot officially sign until they are 16, but teams often strike verbal deals with players from the Dominican Republic and other countries who are as young as 12. Such deals technically are forbidden, and not binding.
As detailed by Baseball America’s Ben Badler, the players who likely would be spurned by Sasaki’s team would be left in a lurch, their futures uncertain. In effect, they would be collateral damage in a system that no longer would exist if MLB and the Players Association had agreed on an international draft in 2022. Sasaki almost certainly would have been the top pick this year. The players whose agreements his signing might jeopardize would have been eligible for selection.
It is not unusual for teams to back out of verbal deals with Latin American prospects. An issue with a player’s physical might be one reason. A reduction in a team’s international budget might be another. An overzealous commitment to too many players might be a third. But as Badler points out, if a team has an agreement with a player at this late stage, less than two months before the 2025 signing period opens, it expects to sign him. If those deals are broken, the players will likely need to accept reduced bonuses from other teams, if they can find openings at all. This could create a ripple effect if players sign with new clubs who then have to break agreements they had previously made in order to fit the new deals into their bonus pool. Players who are caught in this shuffle also could wait to sign until 2026, though teams already have made commitments to players in that class, too, and those players would be a year older.
A solution to all this is possible, if MLB wants to take responsibility rather than allow a team to drop the hammer on a group of eager kids, many of whom come from impoverished backgrounds: Allow Sasaki to sign separately from his new team’s international pool. Uphold the preexisting agreements with the Latin American prospects. Do the honorable thing, rather than simply blame a dishonorable system that should have been fixed long ago.
This is not to suggest Sasaki should become an unrestricted free agent, not when he has yet to fulfill the requirement of being 25 and playing six seasons in a foreign professional league the way Japanese right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto had last offseason. The same basic framework for Sasaki’s contract would apply. His bonus from whichever team wins the bidding could be capped at $7.56 million, a sum that would match the largest pool available in the 2025 signing period. The team that signed him happily would take on the additional cost.
Japan’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto was an unrestricted free agent when he signed with the Dodgers last winter. His countryman, Roki Sasaki, is subject to a different set of rules because of his age. (Kiyoshi Mio / Imagn Images)
Wait, you might say, no such exception was necessary for Shohei Ohtani, who fell under the same restrictions as Sasaki when he signed with the Los Angeles Angels in December 2017. The difference then was the calendar: In 2017, the international signing period opened on July 2 and closed the following June 15. No preexisting agreements needed to be broken. Deals for the bigger names in that class, which included Julio Rodríguez and Wander Franco, had been official for months.
It is ridiculous that young, established Japanese professionals are placed in the same category as amateurs from Latin America and other regions, but that’s another story. In 2021, the league shifted the dates of the international signing period so that it would run from Jan. 15 to Dec. 15. If Sasaki is posted soon enough, he could sign during the current period. But it would behoove him and his Japanese club, the Chiba Lotte Marines, to wait.
The team with the most money left in its bonus pool for the current period, the Los Angeles Dodgers, has slightly more than $2.5 million available, according to Baseball America. A team can trade for up to an additional 60 percent of its original allotment, but the 2025 bonus pools, ranging from $5.1 million to $7.56 million, still would be greater. More money for Sasaki and more money for the Marines, who would receive a release fee equal to 20 percent of Sasaki’s bonus under the current rules.
Separating Sasaki from the system, if only as a one-time exception, would raise uncomfortable questions. What would happen the next time a ballyhooed international professional under the age of 25 announces his intention to play in the majors? How would the league determine whether a player was good enough to warrant the same treatment as Sasaki? And would the team that lands Sasaki gain an unfair competitive advantage if it also was permitted to sign the rest of its international class, a group that generally consists of 10 to 30 players?
Sorry, this isn’t that complicated. The current collective bargaining agreement expires on Dec. 1, 2026. No international free agent with Sasaki’s profile and talent is on the horizon for the next two years. So, to avoid the issue resurfacing, MLB and the union would simply need to agree on an international draft in the next CBA. For reasons that go well beyond Sasaki, their motivation to create a better feeder system for international talent should only be increasing.
Almost three years ago, The Athletic reported on corruption in the current system, with teams pledging contracts to players in Latin America before they were even teenagers. Earlier this month, both ESPN and Baseball America reported on MLB investigations that led to the quashing of deals for teenage prospects who were found to have falsified their ages and identities.
The international draft is an imperfect solution with its share of detractors. For years, it has been a sticking point between MLB and the Players Association. But the union, in the last round of bargaining, dropped its philosophical opposition to the concept. The league offered to eliminate the qualifying offer system in exchange for the draft. The union countered the league’s proposal with one of its own, and the two sides wound up $69 million apart. While the parties also had other differences, their argument mostly boiled down to money.
As for the imbalance of one team getting Sasaki plus an entire international class, what are we really talking about? International amateurs typically sign at 16. The ones who become major leaguers generally require four or five years of development, and most never even reach that level. The biggest advantage for a team that winds up with Sasaki in addition to a full international class would be Sasaki. True, that team also might land a Juan Soto or Vladimir Guerrero Jr. But signing top international talents doesn’t always guarantee those players will have any impact in the big leagues. And far greater inequities exist in the sport.
If the league isn’t keen on making an exception with Sasaki, it could explore other options. Adding to the other 29 teams’ bonus pools to allow them to sign players who lose their agreements with Sasaki’s club. Finding a way to give those players some form of financial security while allowing them to become free agents. Allowing a team to pay Sasaki in 2025 but count him against its pool in ’26, giving players to whom the team verbally committed for ’26 more time to find new deals.
Clearly, there is no perfect answer. But baseball people, when forced to accept a difficult circumstance, often acknowledge the need to “wear it.” A general manager makes a bad trade, wear it. A fielder makes a critical error, wear it. A starting pitcher struggles but needs to cover innings, wear it.
The likelihood of Sasaki signing in the next period raises a different kind of difficult circumstance. A select group of Latin American teenagers stands to lose deals in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Let’s hear someone explain why those players might need to wear it. There’s no way it should happen, if this sport has any conscience.
(Top photo of Roki Sasaki in the 2023 WBC: Eric Espada / Getty Images)
