How Roki Sasaki, Shohei Ohtani Compare As Pitchers At The Same Age

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Image credit: Roki Sasaki (Photo by Yuki Taguchi/WBCI/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

No two players are exactly alike. At the same time, the similarities between Roki Sasaki and Shohei Ohtani as pitchers at the same age are striking.

Ohtani was 23 years old when he moved from Japan to MLB. His fastball sat 96-98 mph and touched 102, his splitter was a vicious, swing-and-miss weapon that made hitters look foolish, his slider flashed plus and he threw everything for strikes, although his command could be inconsistent. He had durability concerns after he missed most of the previous season with an ankle injury and a physical revealed a damaged UCL, but he had the physical frame to get bigger and stronger and improve his endurance over time.

Sasaki is also 23 years old as he prepares to come over from Japan to MLB. His fastball sits 96-100 mph and touches 102, his splitter is a devastating pitch widely considered the best in the world, his slider has improved to be a potentially plus pitch and he has above-average control, though his command can be a tad inconsistent. He faces durability concerns after missing time with a torn left oblique in 2023 and shoulder fatigue last season, but he still has room in his athletic, projectable frame to get bigger and stronger and improve his endurance with age.

Ohtani, of course, had an entirely different dynamic as a two-way player who hit simultaneously. Still, given their similarities as pitchers at the same juncture of their careers—from their arsenals to their physiques to their areas for improvement—Ohtani’s career arc as a pitcher in the majors represents a compelling comparison point for Sasaki. Now, they will be teammates after Sasaki announced on Instagram he was signing with the Dodgers.

“He’s a very similar deal to Ohtani,” an American League international scouting director said. “Top-level impact quality. Quantity is a question.”

Roki Sasaki Pitch Data

Here’s how Sasaki’s arsenal could translate against MLB hitters.

Ohtani flashed his dominance on the mound as a rookie in 2018 before suffering an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery and forced him not to pitch in 2019. He then made only two starts during the shortened 2020 season due to a flexor strain. In his first three seasons in the majors, he made only 12 starts and threw just 53.1 innings.

But once Ohtani hit his physical prime at age 26, he got bigger and stronger, improved his pitches and stayed healthy enough on the mound to show he was one of the best pitchers in baseball—to say nothing of his hitting exploits and unprecedented two-way stardom.

From 2021-23, Ohtani went 34-16 with a 2.84 ERA and 542 strikeouts in 428.1 innings on the mound. Among all qualified starters during that three-season span, Ohtani ranked sixth in ERA, tied for fifth in strikeout rate (11.4 K/9) and was second in opponent average (.189). By almost any measure, he was one of the top five or six starting pitchers in baseball at his peak.

Sasaki has every bit as much upside. When Ohtani was still in Japan, one current general manager who traveled abroad to scout him gave Ohtani an 80 grade as a pitcher and a 70 grade as a hitter on the 20-to-80 scouting scale—the equivalent of a Cy Young Award winner as a pitcher and perennial All-Star as a hitter. Two other prominent, high-ranking evaluators put 70 grades on Ohtani as a pitcher, projecting him to be a front-of-the-rotation starter.

Those same projections are being put on Sasaki today. Scouts and executives who traveled to Japan to watch him universally have at least 70 grades on him, even with his durability concerns. Similar to Ohtani, Sasaki has the potential to be one of the top five or six starting pitchers in baseball at his peak.

“You’re probably going to get 100-150 innings of a quality starter in Sasaki,” one National League special assistant said. “He won’t post for 200 innings. But it’ll be lightning for those 100-150 innings.”

At any price, Sasaki would have been highly pursued. The discounted cost of acquiring him, however, made him that much more coveted.

Also like Ohtani, Sasaki requested to come to MLB before he turned 25, meaning he was classified as an international amateur and could only sign a minor league contract, with his signing bonus capped by a team’s international bonus pool allotment.

The Dodgers’ international bonus pool for the 2025 international signing period was $5,146,200. Teams are allowed to trade for an additional 60% of their bonus pool allotment, meaning the maximum bonus pool the Dodgers could have had—and thus the largest possible bonus they could have given Sasaki—is $8,233,920. The Athletic reported Friday night that Sasaki will sign for $6.5 million.

To put that bargain in perspective, Alex Cobb, who is 37 years old and made all of three starts last season, signed a one-year deal with the Tigers for $15 million in December.

“He’s such a unique situation for the cost,” one National League scouting director said. “(Any concerns) won’t matter.”

Ohtani, it must be noted, proved more durable in Japan than Sasaki has. Ohtani pitched 155.1 innings in 2014, 160.2 innings in 2015 and 140 innings in 2016 for the Nippon Ham Fighters, all while largely playing both ways. Sasaki’s career-high with the Chiba Lotte Marines was 129.1 innings in 2022.

As such, Sasaki will likely require more of a buildup than Ohtani did. That is notable given Ohtani needed three years before he became the ace projected, as well as the fact his three-season run of dominance as a pitcher was interrupted by another UCL injury that forced him to miss another year on the mound in 2024.

But even if it takes Sasaki time to reach his peak and his availability is limited by injuries, his talent is so great that even in a limited workload, he can make an outsized impact on a team’s starting rotation.

And, in the event he does stay healthy and build up without interruption, he has all the talent to quickly become one of the elite starting pitchers in baseball.

“He’s legit,” said one American League executive. “He has every chance to be one of the best.”

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