Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Japanese Ace Roki Sasaki Is Coming To America

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

- Who Is Roki Sasaki? - Scouting Report On Why Sasaki Is Special - How Can The Cardinals Afford Him? - Dream Rotation Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms… 🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOSTLCardinals?sid=YouTube Locked On MLB League-Wide: Every Team, Prospects & More 🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnMLB Follow on Twitter/X: @JDSPORTSRADIO Follow the show on Twitter/X: @LO_Cardinals Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! SelectQuote Get the right life insurance for YOU, for LESS, at SELECTQUOTE.COM/LOCKEDON. SelectQuote - They Shop. You Save. Gametime Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime. FanDuel You can start the season with a big return on FanDuel. New customers can place a FIVE DOLLAR bet and you’ll get started with ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS - if you win your first FIVE DOLLAR BET ! Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) #ForTheLou #stlcards #mlb #lockedoncardinals Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Japanese superstar Roki Sasaki is coming to America. Do the Cardinals even stand a chance at signing him? I'll explain how they probably could if they can convince him. We'll talk about it next on Locked on Cardinals. You are Locked on Cardinals. Your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey there, Cardinals fans.

I'm J.D. Halfran and I'm born and raised in the Lou and a Lifetime Cardinals fan. And I'm your host for Lockdown Cardinals, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network covering your team every day. Do me a solid. Give me a follow on Twitter, X, at JD Sports Radio. You can follow the podcast at LO underscore Cardinals as well. I do want to thank those of you who make Lockstone Cardinals your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get your podcast. We're on YouTube as well. If you're looking for a visual aspect of this show, you can see us on there as well.

I'm waving for those of you who are on YouTube. at the moment. Make sure you hit that notification button so you know when the new episodes are posted. This is a show serving Cardle Nation and giving the best fans in baseball, all of the info about the birds on the bat. Today's episode brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time map, create an account, and use the code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. All right. So apologies for this one being late on this Monday going into Tuesday as we get later and later in this one. Had a lot of stuff going on in my world.

And apologies. Apologies for coming out late. We're going to try to do better and get things out there a little bit quicker for you guys. I know it's the offseason and there's not a ton of stuff going on right now. But there's still news. There's still stuff happening. The news about Roki Sasaki. This is something that has popped up.

And obviously it's got the world of baseball talking. about what's going to have with the Roki Sasaki. Now, finding superstar players isn't an easy thing to do. Obviously, if it was so easy, everyone would have a bunch of them on their teams, and it wouldn't be, you know, we wouldn't have to pay crazy amount of money to bring them over to your franchises. It takes time to draft them. You got to nurture them.

You got to develop them. And in time, hopefully they turn out to be something special. Now, the cardinals, over the history of their career of this franchise, has had success of doing this, drafting and signing players, developing them, and they go on to do big things, you know, Haber Poohole, you out of year, Molina. I mean, we can go on and on and on, all right? We can go way back. We could do stuff that's recently.

But lately it's been tougher than you want it to be, right? For the Cardinals, you know, either the player that you drafted and signed, doesn't develop the way you want them to and doesn't live up to who we thought they were going to be, Dylan Carlson, an example of that. Or when they do hit their prime and hit their stride as a major league player, they're not in with the Cardinals anymore. They're off on some other team helping them become very, very good. We've got a bunch of those that have happened over the last few seasons. We don't need to go and name them anymore and pour salt into those wounds, I don't think. But it's something that ownership and the front office have acknowledged this offseason.

It's why they're changing things. It's why they're putting more funds into player development in their own system. Why is this happening? They want to get to the bottom of that. How do they correct it so that this young talent that they seemingly scout and draft properly end up doing stuff for the Cardinals instead of doing something. for Marlins or the Tampa Bay Rays or the Boston Red Sox or whatever team they end up on or the Dodgers like Tommy Edmund this year. Although we knew he was a good player.

When we traded it, we knew it was a good player. They were just trying to salvage the season. But that part of the reset to figure out why and to correct it all and get it going in the right direction. It's going to take some time, obviously. It won't be a one season and we're back type of situation. Sure, you're hoping for the best when you've got some young players that they obviously believe in. Jordan Walker, Nolan Gorman, Mason Wynne, Yvonne Herrera, Pedro Pahez, Michael Ciani, Victor Scott, Alec Burleson, Thomas and Jacey, Michael McGrady, Andre Palante, Matthews, Matthews. There's a lot of guys in this organization that they feel are going to be very good Major League Baseball players and help this team win a lot of ball games.

and maybe a couple of those guys become superstars. Jordan Walker was highly thought of and was once the top offensive prospect in all of baseball just a couple years ago. Mason Wynn obviously was huge this year with the Big League club. Quinn Matthews appears to be on a path to stardom. But what if you could sign a guy? What if you could sign a guy at a premier position like starting rotation that is considered one of the top players in the world and do it at an affordable price.

Now, finding a superstar that is a free agent and under the age of 25 is something that almost never happens. It almost never happens. It's why almost each and every team in Major League Baseball is drooling and is interested in signing that he was phenom from Japan and Rokey. Sasaki. Sasaki is considered by many to be one of the best pitchers in the world with elite talent that's got every club here in the States excited about the news that broke that he's coming over. They're going to post him and he's coming over. And the bonus about this is that he is somebody that every team can afford, even the Sacramento, Oklahoma, Oakland athletics if they wanted to, they've got enough money to sign this guy because he's not

going to command 30 million plus a year or a 300-something million dollar contract. He's not. I'll explain that part later on. So Saki has pitched four professional seasons in Japan, 2.10 ERA, 11.4 strikeout rate per nine innings through 64 appearances in nearly 400 innings. This year's 2.35 ERA was the highest of any of his four seasons. and it was considered kind of a down year for Sasaki struck out nearly 29% of batters faced against a manageable 7.1% walk percentage. He's good, but what makes him so good?

What's so special about him that everybody needs to grab him? Why is he considered the elite talent in the world? Well, we're going to give you a scouting rundown on Roku Sasaki next on Locked on Cardinals. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Fandall America's never once. because right now new customers can bet $5. That's it. $5 and get $150 in bonus bets if you win. The Pandell Sportsbook app. It gives you everything that you need to place live bets on the NFL, and it's all in one place. So while you're watching the ball game tonight, you're watching the Rams and you're watching the dolphins. Maybe you had a hunch in the middle of the game that something was going to happen.

You can check out the latest stats, view live, play by play, and so much more on the same page. where you place your bets. All you need to do is visit fandle.com to join today. You'll get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. Of course, the NFL will start up again on Thursday, just a couple of short days away. So make sure you're ready for it. That's fandole.com. Never waste a hunch and make every moment more with Vandal, an official sportsbook partner

of the NFL. Thanks again for making Lockhart. It's your first listen every day. you can leave your comments on YouTube as well as on Twitter X anytime you want that feedback. Always welcome and encouraged. And yes, I realize that the Cardinals trying to sign Roku Sasaki. It's a dream scenario right now. It's a dream scenario for every team.

Now, some people have a more realistic chance of signing him. But it doesn't mean the Cardinal shouldn't try, okay, because it's not going to be a money thing. And I'll explain that to you. But I want to refer to Tom Burducci's article for Sports Illustrated. because he had a nice little rundown scouting report, if you will, of what Roku Sasaki has got. So you realize how good he is. So we're going to get into this. Why he's not going to cost an arm and a leg like others have, you know, coming over from Japan or Korea.

It's not going to be that way. First and foremost, though, let's start with his pitching repertoire. He has got a heater that averages 96.9 miles per hour, which is actually down from 90, 0.9 in 2023. So that's something to kind of keep in the back of your head. But according to Verduci's article here, it has 17 inches of induced vertical break, a measurement of ride. Only six MOV starters last season, average at least 96 miles per hour with that much vertical. Tize Bradley, Dylan Sees, McKenzie Gore, Hunter Brown, Louise Heel, and Jared Jones. So some nice young pitchers right there. Obviously, Dylan Cese, somebody who,

you know, one of the better pitchers in Major League Baseball. Sasaki's four-seamer also has ridiculous armside run, 12 inches. Only one MLB pitcher this year had that combination of so much velocity, ride, and run on a four-seem fastball, and that would be, and this is going to blow your mind. Philadelphia Phillies reliever Jeff Hoffman, Jeff Hoffman, who, you know, it seemed was just going to be one of those players that was just kind of, never panned out really. And since he's become a Philly, he's been electric for their bullpen.

It's been crazy. His next best pitch, not Hoffman's, but Roku Shasakis, is the split finger fastball. The low 90s dive bomber thrown with a wide four-scene grip is a swing and miss pitch. Some people believe that actually the splitter is his best pitch overall. One Scott told Breducci that his command of the split is phenomenal. He's also got a slider, which Breducci calls average. and his story saying that the 84 mile per hour breaking pitch with gyrospin is not a great pitch yet. The scout said Sasaki threw it more often this year as if to just demonstrate more pitchability to MLB teams rather than being labeled as a two-pitch pitcher.

The scout said the slider is too slow with a poor movement profile and will be tightened up by the team that acquires him. Dusty Blake, are we listening? Are we listening? Okay. When comparing his body size and type, he says he's like Zach Wheeler from the Philadelphia Phillies. On the quirky side, he's a wrist wrapper. And he explains as he takes the ball behind him, the wrist flips with the palm side of the hand up. He says it's kind of like in the manner of David Cohn or a young Zach Wheeler. He has a somewhat weak front side in which he allows the glove hand to drop slightly rather than pulling it in. Wheeler, another hyper-fast move,

who is about the same size, 64-195, but Sasaki has a higher arm slot. Wheeler quieted his wristwrap after his Tommy John surgery. So hopefully Sasaki doesn't go down that road, doesn't have any arm injuries and nothing like that. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows when it comes to Sasaki. You know, I'm giving you a rundown of a lot of the good stuff that he brings to the table.

But he's not perfect. Nobody is. Some of the concerns surrounding him are his decrease in velocity, which we brought up earlier over the last couple years. Now he's still averaging 97. It's not like he's dipped down to like 91, 92, and there's a serious issue here. But going from 99 on average to 97,

it's going to open some eyes. People are going to be like, hmm, what's going on there? Durability questions. Career high innings in one season is only 129 in a third, which he did back in 2022. is innings fell to 91 and 23 and then 111 this year, in part due to arm soreness and an oblique issue. We know how the obliques can be a serious problem, matter what position you're dealing with, but it's just one of those where you just have to wait, you got to wait, you got to wait.

So durability issues, not a big guy, obviously. So that's something that people are concerned about. But overall, there's not like just this smorgasbord of things to complain about. I mean, I feel like we're being a little nitpicky about the thing. You can say that about almost every pitch. You're like, well, you know, there's a chance. He could get hurt. Of course there's a chance.

All of them could get hurt at one time or another. You just never know when things are going to go. But overall, not too much to complain about the question most people have really about him is, all right, so he's so good. How much is he going to cost? What's this going to set me back, man? This is, it's going to be painful, right? Are we talking Yoshinobu Yamamoto type of money?

Is it going to be that painful? The answer is no. It is not going to be like that. Not even close to do anything like that. And that is why I feel like the Cardinals have a chance here. So I'll explain what's going on with his signing and why it's not going to be one of those crazy contracts that you just saw Yamamoto sign with the Dodgers,

this past off season. We'll get into that next on Locked on Cardinals. There's not a whole lot of things better than going to a live sporting event. I mean, let's be honest. You're a sports fan. You're listening to a sports podcast. It makes sense, whether it's baseball, basketball, hockey, football, all of your favorite sports. I don't care which one you're going to. You love going to see it and watch it live. It's just a lot of fun to do that. And with the GameTime app, you're going to be able to find tickets to all of your favorite sporting events of talking about Cardinals baseball next year. but also what's going on right now, blues hockey, slew basketball,

Missou basketball, Missou Football, Southern Illinois basketball. You got St. Louis Ambush. They even got tickets for all-elite wrestling, which is coming up in December. Killer last-minute deals on the GameTime app. They got the all-in prices, which is always great. You know, sometimes you'll sign up and you're like,

okay, ooh, look at that deal. And then you get to the final checkout and you're like, whoa, why did everything double or sometimes even triple? They got the all-in-pricing. on the GameTime app. That way you don't have any of those sneaky prices jump up on you. You get views from your seats. You know exactly what you're getting into and their lowest price guarantee game time. They take the guesswork out of buying tickets to all of your favorite sporting events as well as concerts and comedy and theater, whatever it is you're wanting to

get into. So download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account, redeem code locked on MLB. That's L-O-C-E-D-O-N-M-LB for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute, take the lowest price, guaranteed. Thank you again for making Locked-on Cardinals. Your first listen today for your second listen. Find Locked-on MLB, baseball guru Sully brings a daily blend of humor in baseball,

keeping updated to all the teams during this off season, even the ones that may not be spending all that much money like our St. Louis Cardinals. You can find Locked on MLB on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast. All right. So last year, Yoshidobu Yamamoto, remember the last offseason? And we're talking about ways to improve the St. Louis Cardinals team. How can we get them back into contention after that just whored, 2023? Who do they need to sign to make such an impact that will take them to that next level? Sunny Gray was obviously somebody we targeted. He was somebody we were very much interested in. But everybody wanted to get their hands on Yoshinobu Yamamoto, right? He was the big thing coming over from Japan. And we knew he was going to be expensive. I don't know if we all thought he was going to be quite as expensive as he ended up signing for because he got a bag from the Dodgers. 12 years, 200 or 12 years, $3,000 in $25 million. The Dodgers also had to pay his former club about $50 million.

Quite an investment. But you're talking about a guy, 25 years old, has been one of the best pitchers in Japan. and you thought it would, you know, it would come over to the states and be just as dominant. Still was good, but dealt with injuries this year. That's one of the risks that you take when it comes with signing pitchers to big contracts. That kind of money, when we started to realize that's where it was going. We knew the Cardinals weren't going to do that. This is not something they were interested in doing, despite all the chatter last year.

You ended up getting Greg, which was fine. But then you had to sign Lyndon Gibson, but you paid all three of them, Basically what you paid or what LA had to pay Yamamoto's former team to Buffalo. It's like the posting fee. That's what they pay. What they spent on that is what the Cardinal spent on three pitchers last year for their rotation. But that will not be the case with Roki Sasaki. Most Japanese stars who jump to the majors will do it after they turn 25.

When they still must go through a posting system in which they're, Japan team, the NPB club, receives a release fee from the signing MLB club, which is what the Buffalo's got from the Dodgers, but can sign a big money major league deal. All right. So as long as you pay them that, you can sign him to whatever you want to do. And that's what happened. Yoshinovi Yamamoto was 25 years old.

So he qualified for that. Sasaki is still 23. Now, a player leaving the NPB before 25 is considered an international amateur free agent and permitted only to sign a minor league deal with a bonus paid from the team's international bonus pool. For 2025, those pools range from 5.1 million to 7.6 million. So we're not even talking about the same ballpark as what Yoshinobu Yamamoto got. This is what Shoahey Otani did. Now, it seems like Otani's been in the league forever and he's got this crazy contract that he signed with the Dodgers.

But remember, he went to the Angels. He was 23 years old, signed him with the Angels for $2.3 million. $2.3. The Angels received six years of a contract, contractual control, I should say, for Otani, three years of minimum salary, three years of arbitration before he reached free agency. They had him for a long time. They couldn't figure out how to win with him. he goes to the Dodgers and wins the World Series in his first year.

Had Otani played two more years in Japan, his initial MLB contract would have been much more like Yamamoto's was, but he wanted to come over, which is according to reports what Sasaki wants to do. He is just ready for the challenge of Major League Baseball now. He doesn't want to wait anymore. Some people feel like because of the endorsement money he can make or whatever, he's like, I'll be fine. So he's ready to go over now. He's ready to come to the States now instead of waiting until he's 25 years old, which means that any team can afford this guy. Like he's super affordable like Otani was. Then what Yamamoto got last year, which is, you know, there's only a couple of teams.

They're going to fork over a contract like that. The key is how do you woo him? How do you woo him to become a member of the St. Louis Cardinals instead of going to one of these big markets? quads instead. The obvious favorite to land him is the Dodgers. Okay. That's already been said. Everybody thinks he's going to L.A. already because you have a Shoahotani over there. You have a Yamamoto already. They are the champions. It's Los Angeles. It's palm trees and sunshine. There's there's a lot to like about going there. And you will get paid eventually. But for now, every team will have a crack at him. So it really depends on what Sasaki is comfortable with. I

I have no idea how this guy feels about big cities or what kind of weather he likes or anything like that. League sources told the athletics will salmon that amongst Sasaki's priorities are stability, lifestyle, comfort, and a team's track record with player development. To that, I say, hey, the Cardinals are working on at Roki, okay, and we got a large new bar. You like him, right? He's fun. He's fun. Pepper thing. Yeah, remember that? that's our guy.

Now the deadline to post him is going to be on December 15th. So about a month from now. And then after that, there's going to be a 45-day window for teams to recruit Sasaki and for him to make the most money possible. It would actually benefit him to sign with a team after January 15th because that's when the teams like every team in the major league baseball, their international bonus pool money will reset. Like right now, everybody's.

spent almost all their stuff from 2024. The Cardinals currently have just $672,200 available from their 2024 window, which I know it doesn't sound like a lot. I mean, that sounds like a lot for us. But when it comes to the pool money, that's actually the eighth highest available. But guess who's at the top? Good. The Dodgers.

Yes, the Dodgers. Two and a half million dollars. They still got in their pool, followed by the Orioles, the Yankees, the Giants, the Red Sox, the Rockies, the White Sox, and then you got the Cardinals. Now for the 2025 window, the Cardinals have around $5.7 million available, which sounds, oh, that sounds great, right? That's a decent chunk of change. That's actually near the bottom.

That's actually near the bottom with the Dodgers, the Giants in Houston. Everyone else has between $7.6 and $6.3 million to use. So that's going to be a disadvantage for the Cardinals, but it also depends on what the other team's plans for the upcoming period. already. Some of them might have already planted out where they're budgeted it, that they're already going to spend that money. So maybe

they won't have as much as they thought they did. But that's how it is. That's how it works out. And it's why the Cardinals, it's why the Cardinals really need to try to go for this. Are the Cardinals the favorite to land him? Absolutely not. Absolutely

not. But they definitely should put their best foot forward. Sasaki, I mean, he's young, he's inexpensive compared to the market of what somebody like him could get. Like Yamamoto's getting $325 million and they think a lot of people, when I say they, I'm talking about Scots, a lot of them think that Sasaki's got a better future and a brighter future than Yamamoto. So if he's $3.25, what does Sasaki be making? 350, $3.75.

And you don't have to pay him that. and you're going to get him for quite a long time of team control. So inexpensive, he's young, and if things go the way they are projected to go, he's going to be an ace for somebody for quite a long time, quite a long time. So I'm not holding my breath by any means, but if the Cardinals were ever going to put forth a major effort to sign an international free agent, there it is. This is your time, man.

This is where you go for it. You put your chips in and say, Hey, what do you need? What are you need from us? I mean, what would a rotation with Sasaki look like? Like, go ahead and close your eyes real quick. Let's just do, do do do, do do, do let's go to the dream scenario. Next year, you could have a rotation.

Sunny Gray sticking around, which I like. Cool. Roki Sasaki. What about a Quinn Matthews? Ooh. Then you've got some other youngsters like Michael McGreevy, Andre Palante. Obviously, there have to be some trades there.

I mean, that could be your rotation for the next couple of years until Sunny Gray's done. And then you just, you know, by then you're moving on into different things. But even for next year, you've still got Eric Fetty. You've got Stephen Matt and Miles Michael is still under contract, barring any trades. So bringing in somebody like him would, oh, I mean, that would be amazing, right?

You would immediately have a bona fide rotation that would compete for the top rotation in the National League. Well, I won't say National League. Maybe just in El Central, for sure, though, in L. Central. That is if Sasaki and Matthews turn out to be as good as they appear they're going to be.

I just think it would be a magical fit. And yes, this scenario is very unlikely. And yes, he's probably just going to go to the Dodgers anyway to be with Shohei and Yamamoto. And there's talk about him going to play with you, Darvish, with the Padres, or Kodaisanga and going to the Mets. You know, there are other reasons why he would go to some of these other teams, you know, just it's tough. It's one of the reasons why, like, the Carls are going to have a tough time signing free agents just in general, not even guys coming over from other countries, just because, like, a lot of these other teams can offer more money. They can offer more like when it comes to endorsement deals and stuff.

They just, they're bigger markets. So it ain't going to be easy. Definitely not going to be easy. But it won't be because of money. I will tell you that much. It's not because the Dodgers are going to give them so much more than the Cardinals can. It really is not going to come down to that. It's going to be where he wants to go.

So the Cardinals, although very slim, have a chance. You're saying there's a chance. That's right, for now at least. So can't we just dream together? Let's just enjoy that vision for a little bit. Go ahead and tear me apart in the comment section about how ridiculous this is to even think that he would come to St. Louis. But you can't argue with me and not say that this is something the cardinal should go after, though. There's really no excuses why you wouldn't try to get this guy.

So I don't know. Let me know what you think in the comment section. Thank you again for making Lockton Cardinals. Listen to every day. Apologies for this coming out so late. If you haven't already, give us a follow on Twitter, X at L1 underscore Cardinals at JD Sports Radio. Please like and subscribe on YouTube.

Help our channel and our love for the Cardinals grow because we are almost two 11,000 subscribers. We're getting there. You guys are the best fans in baseball for a reason. And I will see you next time on Locked on Cardinals.