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MLB Notebook: Roki Sasaki posted by Chiba Lotte Marines, Tampa Bay Rays to play at Yankees Spring Training Facility
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Photo credit: AP - Eugene Hoshiko
Brett Holden
Nov 15, 2024, 20:00 ESTUpdated: Nov 15, 2024, 20:23 EST
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Roki Sasaki posted by Chiba Lotte Marines

Roki Sasaki, the most coveted International free agent since… *checks notes*… Yoshinobu Yamamoto, will be posted by Chiba Lotte.
It did seem unlikely to start the offseason as it was initially reported Sasaki would not be posted. Still, after some deliberation and discussion, Chiba Lotte decided to honour the youngster’s wishes by posting him as a free agent.
The thing that works in favour of the teams and is almost unfortunate for Sasaki is, since Sasaki is only 23 years old, Sasaki will be posted as an amateur free agent and not a professional. Despite already dominating Nippon Professional Baseball for the last three years, Sasaki has not accumulated the appropriate service time to become a “professional” free agent. This title means Sasaki can only sign a minor-league contract with whichever team he ends up signing with.
However, despite the limitations of his contract, he can still make a reasonable amount of money with his signing bonus. Every team has an international signing bonus pool that they can dip into to sign an international free agent. Now, at this point of the year, the majority of teams have used most, if not all of their pool money on Latin American players. But, international pool budgets reset on January 15th, which may be when we see the race for Sasaki heat up.
Roki Sasaki has been a coveted prospect around baseball for a few years now. Most North American fans were introduced to the tall righty during the World Baseball Classic, where he really stood out. Sasaki struck out 11 hitters in 7.2 innings, tied for third in the tournament with Shohei Ohtani and upon returning to Japan for the regular season, he posted his best ERA in his professional career with a 1.78 and 135 strikeouts in 91.0 innings pitched.
This year, Sasaki continued his dominance, pitching in three more games and securing a sub 2.40 ERA with a 2.35 and over 100 strikeouts for the third time in three years with 129, albeit eclipsing the 10-win plateau for the first time in his career. While his single-season stats are impressive, his career stats are what stand out: 29-15 career record with 505 strikeouts, 2.10 ERA and only 88 walks in 394.2 innings. Yeah. 88 free passes in 394.2 innings. That’s insane, this kid literally does not miss. Oh, and never mind his 15 career homers allowed. Yeah. 15. That would be one home run in every 26 innings. That’s incredible.
The front-runner for Sasaki is obvious; it’s the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers have jumped into the Japanese market head-first over the past year. With the massive money signings of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers have quickly become one of the most popular teams in Japan. But, Dodgers President of Baseball Operations, Andrew Friedman, has already been quite active on the Sasaki front. A video surfaced from last winter of Friedman at a workout for Sasaki while laughing and joking with the youngster. Plus, it has been reported that Sasaki is looking for a team with a good track record of player development; Los Angeles has had one of the best farm systems in all of baseball for the past decade.
While a lot of fingers point to Hollywood Sasaki, there have been some people who have thrown some water on the fire. As Jim Bowden reports, he has spoken to decision-making executives who believe they are just as much in the race as the Dodgers are. Bowden says Sasaki will look to replenish his lost earnings from being marked an amateur free agent with endorsements, which Bowden suggests Los Angeles, Hollywood, the City of Dreams, would not be the right place for Sasaki to get endorsement deals, (that makes sense). Bowden claims Sasaki would be in the shadows of players like Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto and instead a team like the Mets, being in the Big Apple and already having Kodai Senga on the roster would make for a more welcoming spot for a young Roki Sasaki.
While the endorsement angle makes sense, Sasaki would likely look for a place that could offer him more residuals than others to compensate for that lost money… Wouldn’t the literal home of entertainment open the most doors for endorsement? Anyway, I’m getting carried away at Jim Bowden now. The long and short is: Sasaki good, and will sign with an MLB organization this winter.

Tampa Bay Rays to play at Yankees Spring Training Facility

The Tampa Bay Rays have found their new temporary home for the 2025 season. After Hurricane Milton tore the roof off Tropicana Field in October, estimates for repair of the stadium would take longer than the team expected, making it inhabitable for the 2025 season, forcing the Rays to find an interim home in the meantime.  
Numerous ballparks were up as options for the Rays and considering their favourable geography surrounded by Spring Training Facilities, it didn’t seem like too tall of a task to find their new *temporary* home, which proved to be the case. Just about a month later, the Rays announced that they will call George M. Steinbrenner Field, the Spring Training residence for the New York Yankees, their home for the 2024 season.
Steinbrenner Field holds a capacity of 11,000 and is also the home of the Yankees Class-A affiliate, the Tampa Tarpons. Open since 1996, Steinbrenner Field has been the Spring home for the Yankees ever since. The ballpark has also been the home of three other sports teams, including the Tarpons, in its 28-year history, including the Florida Complex League team for the Yankees and an NWSL club, FC Tampa Bay.
The Rays will become the second team in Major League Baseball to play in a Minor League ballpark in the 2024 season, following the Oakland Athletics departure from the Oakland Coliseum. This will mark the first time in Major League history that not only one but two teams will play their entire season out of a Minor League ballpark. This is kind of outrageous, but looking at the circumstances, one by a literal act of God, and the other being an improperly planned relocation, you can understand why this has never happened in league history.
And while it woulda been awesome to watch the Rays play their games out of Disney World, I am actually quite excited to watch MLB games played in a much more intimate setting. It should help the Rays considering hearing a fan cheer in the Trop was like yelling underwater in an empty pool, maybe forcing a shift of perception amongst baseball fans on Tampa Bay Rays fans. Vice Versa with the A’s. While Athletics fans came out in droves near the end of the season, the past few years have been pretty quiet in the Coliseum at baseball games. Placing the Athletics in a more intimate setting may re-spark the love of the game for so many fans and hopefully new fans as well. 

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