Japanese star pitcher Roki Sasaki is being posted for entry to Major League Baseball, a move destined to help reshape the league’s offseason hot stove period. 

Nippon Professional Baseball’s Chiba Lotte Marines said Saturday that they will make the 23-year-old Sasaki available to MLB teams, bringing one of the game’s top young talents into the open market. Already with four seasons of pro experience in Japan, Sasaki boasts a 2.02 career earned run average and has struck out 524 batters in just 414.2 innings—totals boosted by a blazing fastball that has topped 102 miles per hour coupled with a wipeout slider. He also has pitched a perfect game. 

Because of Sasaki’s age, he will be classified as an international amateur free agent and be subject to bonus pool limits imposed on MLB teams. That structure will mean his initial MLB contract will be no larger than seven figures in size, and he will be under club control through the 2030 season. The team that acquires Sasaki will pay the Marines a posting fee equal to 20% of his contract’s guaranteed value. 

That situation differs materially from the 12-year, $325 million contract the Dodgers signed late last year with fellow Japanese star Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who was 25 at the time of his deal. But Sasaki’s path does resemble that of Shohei Ohtani, who initially signed with the Angels in 2017 for a $2.3 million bonus and a league-minimum salary that, at the time, was $545,000 per season.

As a result, nearly every MLB team is in play to land Sasaki. That will be particularly true if Sasaki is posted in mid-December or later. The current international signing period runs through Dec. 15, but a new one for 2025 starts a month later, when all clubs will have a full complement of bonus pools. 

If Sasaki is posted sooner, though, the Dodgers would have a clear advantage, as they still have $2.5 million left in their 2024 bonus pool, more than any other MLB club. A specific timetable for the posting, however, has not been determined. Had Chiba Lotte waited another two years, they would have received a much larger posting fee, similar to the more than $60 million the Orix Buffaloes received after Yamamoto joined the Dodgers. But Sasaki won out in his desire to make the jump now. 

“From the time he joined the organization, we were told by [Sasaki] of his dream to play in America,” said Chiba Lotte GM Naoki Matsumoto in a statement. “Taking into account the last five years as a whole, we have decided to prioritize his thoughts. We are hoping he does his best as a representative of Japan. We are cheering for him.”

Bigger Picture

Despite the more level playing field, the Dodgers and Padres have been widely seen as the favorites to land Sasaki—for a variety of reasons including relative geographic proximity to Japan. 

Because of the low cost to obtain a talent of this level, the Sasaki situation is not expected to have any direct bearing on the ongoing race to land outfielder Juan Soto, the top player in MLB’s current free-agent class. Soto is expected to land a deal of at least $600 million, which would be the second-largest contract in U.S. pro sports history, and perhaps beat Ohtani’s current, $700 million pact with the Dodgers in present-day value. 

Already grappling with a near-term issue of where to play, the Rays now have potential new trouble with their agreement to build a $1.3 billion ballpark in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Soon after Hurricane Milton ripped the roof off of Tropicana Field, leaving it likely unplayable for at the start of the 2025 season, this past week’s election brought victories for Republican challengers Chris Scherer and Vince Nowicki on the Pinellas County Commission. That body will be charged with issuing bonds that fund $312.5 million toward the planned stadium in a deal agreed to last summer. 

The new makeup of the commission—a Republican supermajority with two members-elect carrying public skepticism on the ballpark deal, particularly in light of broader storm damage—introduces questions about whether the deal will survive.

“Whatever was agreed to before needs to be looked at differently now, because we are dealing with a county where, you know, tens of thousands of homes have been destroyed, and our infrastructure that was inadequate to begin with has suffered a lot of damage,” Scherer told The Tampa Bay Times. 

The new commission members will be sworn in on Nov. 18, one day before the bonds are back on the agenda for approval. 

The overall public-sector contribution toward the ballpark is $600 million, also including city-level funds from St. Petersburg. But new ‘no’ votes on bond approval, which must be done by March 31, from Scherer and Nowicki—combined with incumbent opposition from last summer—would be enough to tank the deal and force the club to rework the financing model. 

The Rays, as of now, remain primarily focused on solving their 2025 home field issue. Damage assessments are still being conducted at Tropicana Field, but the facility suffered damage beyond just the roof, and is not designed for outdoor use. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has expressed a preference for the Rays to play temporarily in their current market area, and is looking to have a clear path on where the club’s temporary home will be by Christmas.

“We are focused on what is now our single most urgent issue: securing a place for the Rays to play the 2025 season, which begins in four months,” said Rays president Brian Auld.  

The club’s plan to go into a new stadium in 2028, meanwhile, further complicates the discussion about the merits of rehabilitating Tropicana Field. So, too, does the commission’s new composition.

The NFL plans on playing international regular-season games in Ireland, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Germany, and the U.K. in 2025, commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed Sunday morning in Munich.

The Giants-Panthers game in Germany concludes the NFL’s five-game 2024 international slate, but owners have already approved the league to play up to eight games outside the U.S., beginning next season—and it appears they are wasting no time.

A game in Madrid has already been announced. The NFL will also return to London for several games, as well as playing at least once in Germany.

Speaking Sunday morning on NFL Network’s NFL GameDay in Germany, Goodell said the league also expects to return to Brazil, where it debuted in Sao Paulo in September, and Mexico City, where it last played in 2022. 

“We’re also looking at the potential of another game in the U.K. area, in Ireland, possibly,” Goodell said. Last month, Goodell hinted at soon playing in Dublin, and said that the Steelers want to play there.

“That totals eight,” Goodell said of the international game count for 2025. “That’s what we’re shooting for.”

In the future, additional countries in which the NFL could play games include Australia, France, Italy, and even the Middle East. The league is also exploring selling broadcasts of those international games as part of a new TV package that could bring in more than $1 billion annually.

Goodell has also previously said the NFL would like to eventually play 16 games per season in foreign countries and is open to the possibility of playing a Super Bowl in London.