Hyped Roki Sasaki Quickly Becoming Subpar | May 5, 2025

The Los Angeles Dodgers did what they do best this offseason: They went out and bought more talent instead of producing it in-house. But opening up the pocketbooks yet again seems to be backfiring. Most recently, in the much-hyped and anticipated World Baseball Classic Japanese ace Roki Sasaki. Thus far, this young pitcher is performing sub-par to his hype. But does that mean he’s a “bad pitcher?” Let’s dig in and find out here.

Roki Sasaki’s 2025 So Far

To start off, we do need to set a few things straight. Expectations need to be tempered as we are only scratching the month of May for the 2025 baseball season, and Roki Sasaki has only pitched seven MLB games. But even so, we have to look at Roki Sasaki through the lens of the ace that he was signed to be. Looking at the numbers so far what the Los Angeles Dodgers have gotten is a back-end starter at best performance from Sasaki.

As of the writing of this article, Sasaki has a 3.86 ERA, a 1-1 record, 20 BB, 24 K’s, and has allowed 4 home runs. Nothing about these numbers is screaming elite by any stretch of the imagination. These statistics say Roki Sasaki is pitching just shy of the average MLB pitcher. While there is nothing wrong in and of itself with being around the MLB average, the problem for the Los Angeles Dodgers is that they signed Sasaki to be an Ace. An elite arm that was advertised as such in his time in Japan

There is plenty of season left for the Japanese phenom to turn things around and right the ship. As it stands, this is looking to go down as a bad move for the Boys in Blue. But taking a look at Sasaki’s numbers while pitching in Japan, there is some hope that things can be turned around.

Chiba Lotte Roki Sasaki

Roki Sasaki spent the time from 2019-2024 in the NPB, a total of four seasons as a Starting Pitcher. Over that time, Saski showed off his dominance in the league. His ERA never cracked 3.00 in his time in the Pacific. He allowed a high of 7 home runs, a high of 32 BB, and in three of four seasons had over 120 K’s. These numbers are not only good but well into the elite realm. One can easily see why Roki Saski caught the eye of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

A major difference between Sasaki as a member of the Chiba Lotte team and the Dodgers is the level of hitting that is here in America. Roki Sasaki has to face elite hitters like Matt Olson, Elly De La Cruz, and Mike Trout to name a few. While the Dodgers helped out and went out and bought a ton of hitters, it is hard to escape elite talent, even in the weakest division in all of baseball. Day in and day out Sasaki is facing better hitters, and he needs to find adjustments, and fast, to counter these better bats.

There is no doubt that skill resides in this hopeful rising star. But unless drastic changes are taken, Roki Sasaki will continue to be over-matched and will find himself being written off as overhyped and just plain average. If there was a way to regain his Chiba Lotte form, then the sky is the absolute ceiling for this young arm.

Wrap-Up

To stop beating a dead horse, it is pretty clear that we here at Total Apex have shown that there is definitive talent coming from the young Japanese ace. But it has not translated well at all over here under the bright lights of the MLB, pun intended, sorry Shohei Ohtani.

Unless big changes are made to Sasaki’s approach to these big league hitters, it just doesn’t seem like Roki Sasaki will maintain that ace title nor elite. He will be below average. But I will say it first, if Sasaki can figure things out consistently, then an article of hype and apology will be written post haste. That’s all for now, until next time.