Development, comfort: Why Tigers might be destination for Sasaki

This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

DALLAS -- Straight answers can be hard to find in Hot Stove season. But with Japanese sensation Roki Sasaki, there’s no sense in hiding it.

A 23-year-old hurler with four highly successful seasons in Japan, available as an international amateur signing? Who wouldn’t be interested?

“Every team in baseball wants to talk to him. We do, too,” Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris said, echoing sentiments around MLB.

It’s acknowledging the obvious talent, while also acknowledging the unique nature of this pursuit. This isn’t a simple bidding war; with teams dealing from near-equal international spending pools, it’s more like a recruitment. And the Tigers are determined to make their best pitch.

“We’re hard at work on a presentation to position this organization as appealing to Roki and his agent,” Harris said. “It’s going to be pretty fierce competition, and we’re hard at work to make our case, and we’ll see how it goes. But yeah, consider us interested in Sasaki. He’s one of the more talented young pitchers in baseball.”

The Tigers’ history with Japanese talent is limited. When Harris signed Kenta Maeda to a two-year contract last offseason, he became the first Japanese player on the roster since Hideo Nomo and Masao Kida in 2000. Over the years, Detroit was on the periphery of some Japanese pursuits such as Junichi Tazawa, who signed a Minor League contract with the Tigers near the end of his career after signing with Boston a decade earlier.

Maeda’s signing was a step towards cracking open the door to that part of the market, though Maeda has pitched in the U.S. for years.

“If … creating a first-class experience in this organization for Kenta and his family inspires other Japanese players to want to come to Detroit and play here, that’s great,” Harris said a year ago. “But it’s not the reason why we signed Kenta.”

Maeda and Sasaki are represented by different agents -- Scott Boras and Joel Wolfe, respectively. Nor does there appear to be a personal connection between the two.

“I don’t know specifically if [Sasaki] and Maeda have a relationship,” Wolfe said at this week’s Winter Meetings. “I don’t think they would have crossed paths, so it would have been just direct communication, and he has not mentioned that to me.”

Still, while the Dodgers have long been favored to sign Sasaki, there are reasons to see Detroit as a potential destination.

First is the culture of pitching development that the Tigers have built in recent years. While Jack Flaherty and Michael Lorenzen have been the most prominent examples, building bounceback seasons after signing one-year contracts, there are younger examples, and not just top prospect Jackson Jobe. Reese Olson bloomed from a former sixth-round pick by Milwaukee into a legitimate Major League starter since joining the Tigers system in the Daniel Norris trade of 2021.

Sawyer Gipson-Long, acquired from the Twins for Michael Fulmer at the Trade Deadline two years ago, had an eye-opening stretch as a September callup in 2023 before missing last season due to Tommy John surgery. Jason Foley blossomed from undrafted free agent to Major League closer. Pitching development came up as a topic when Wolfe discussed his client to reporters at the Winter Meetings.

Second is Detroit’s presence as a mid-market team with a little less spotlight than some larger cities on the coasts.

“I think that there’s an argument to be made that a smaller, mid-market team might be more beneficial for him as a soft landing coming from Japan, given what he’s been through and not having an enjoyable experience with the media,” Wolfe said at the Winter Meetings. “I’m not saying it will be, but … it might be beneficial for him to be in a smaller market.”

Financially, the Tigers are generally on the same footing as other teams. Their international bonus pool of $7,555,500 is tied for highest with the A’s, Reds, Marlins, Brewers, Twins, Mariners and Rays. At the other end are the Giants with $4,146,200, followed by the Dodgers with $5,146,200. Most teams have $6.2 million to $6.9 million to spend.

Teams can acquire additional spending pool money through trades; the Tigers traded some of theirs last year to the Padres in exchange for pitching prospect Blake Dickerson.

The tricky part is that teams plan out their international spending years in advance. The Tigers, for instance, are widely expected to sign 16-year-old Dominican slugger Cris Rodriguez, the No. 4 prospect in the 2025 international class per MLB Pipeline. Signing Sasaki could require teams to change plans, but the Tigers are expected to stay the course and ink Rodriguez when the signing period opens Jan. 15, a deal that will take a chunk out of their spending pool.

But if money was the ultimate factor, Sasaki wouldn’t be making the jump now. He could’ve been a free agent had he waited a couple years. It’s up to the Tigers to recruit Sasaki based on baseball factors.