Allowing Sasaki to Fail in the Majors Is Part of the Dodgers' Plan for His Success

LOS ANGELES Roki Sasaki toed the rubber before the top of the sixth inning on May 11, looking to put a stamp on what was shaping up to be his best start of the season. He had held a scuffling San Francisco Giants team to one run over five innings, pitched around a bases-loaded jam in the third and retired his previous eight hitters.

At 81 pitches and with a fully rested bullpen behind him, the sixth was going to be Sasaki’s last frame. The question was simply if he could get through it.

The Giants answered with three straight hits, including a two-run, go-ahead double by Heliot Ramos that knocked Sasaki out of the game without recording an out in the inning.

Despite using him as a reliever in last year’s postseason, the Dodgers pledged their commitment to Sasaki as a starting pitcher minutes after they won the 2025 World Series. They have continued that promise through the quarter-mark of the season, citing slow, incremental improvement over his 5.88 ERA and one of the highest home run rates in the National League.

Clearly, that improvement has not always been linear. In seven starts so far this year, ahead of a scheduled start May 17 against the Los Angeles Angels, Sasaki has yet to establish either the command or the velocity of his prestigious fastball that once sat at triple digits in Japan. He has worked to add a third pitch to his arsenal -- a slider -- and folded in a variation of his forkball, one that resembles more of a traditional splitter. The Dodgers have been encouraged by the progress, even if it has not translated immediately to line score success.

That is the tightrope they will continue to walk. However, it invites the question that if Sasaki needs to work on this many facets of his game, why not do it in the minor leagues?

Simply put: The Dodgers believe that would be detrimental to his long-term development and severely hurt his chances of growing into a top-tier starting pitcher. For Sasaki to achieve what the club believes is his highest potential, he is going to have to adjust in the major leagues. The Dodgers are willing to grant him that opportunity, even if it costs them a handful of games in the regular season.

They believe the eventual payoff will be worth it.

“We definitely see him as a long-term starting pitcher,” Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, recently told The Athletic. “We are very firm believers that he has the ability and the upside to be an elite starting pitcher in this game.”

There are several factors that play into keeping Sasaki in the majors. The gap in talent between Triple-A and the big leagues has never been wider. Sasaki can get away with mistake pitches in the minors that would be pummeled in the majors, and he won’t learn how to attack major league hitters or how to vary his pitch mix against a lower-caliber level of play. He may also have had trouble adjusting to the change in the baseball from Japan to MLB, though Sasaki has previously denied that being the case.

“The feedback he gets from major league hitters is really important,” Friedman said. “This is a really talented pitcher who, when delivery and throw and everything is synced up, can really spot a fastball. We haven’t seen that as much here and now. Some of that’s the ball. Some of it may be giving hitters too much credit. Some of it may be the delivery, but those are all things that him facing the best of the best helps us get there.”

Part of the problem is that neither his fastball nor his forkball are as effective in the major leagues as they were in Japan. The Dodgers are comfortable giving Sasaki time for that to change, but there is no guarantee that he will be able to hit 99 or 100 mph as he did in Japan. That’s why the club is adamant that he incorporate more options into his arsenal.

Sasaki’s overall success played off his ability to vary speeds between his fastball and forkball. If those pitches lack the stuff, expanding the arsenal to keep hitters off-balance is pivotal. That takes time to develop at the major league level.

The Dodgers did not expect this to be a seamless transition, which is why they were willing to grant Sasaki such a long leash in the first place. Sustaining command continues to be a work in progress, though he has been in the zone much more consistently over his last three starts. But for a fan base expecting the Dodgers to compete for a third straight World Series title, it can still be exasperating, especially because the ways the Dodgers measure Sasaki’s success don’t always correlate to success in the box score.

Friedman understands that sentiment in the moment, but he must make decisions for the long-term benefit of the Dodgers, as well. Ensuring that their dynastic run extends far past this team’s current window is a priority.

“I 100% appreciate and get that right now, fans don’t care at all about three years from now or five years from now,” Friedman said. “But when we get there, they definitely will. So it’s incumbent upon us to do everything we can to maximize the now, while also doing everything we can to put ourselves in the best position in the future as well.”

That means sticking with Sasaki, even with rotation changes looming. The Dodgers avoided having to make their first difficult rotation decision this month, when Tyler Glasnow landed on the 15-day injured list with back spasms shortly before Blake Snell was ready to be activated. But Glasnow is expected to miss close to the minimum amount of time, and Los Angeles can’t put off making the decision forever.

One thing that remains clear is Sasaki’s status. The Dodgers will continue giving him as much opportunity in the majors as they can. It’s the only way for them to figure out what they truly have in their 24-year-old right-hander. Plenty of work remains.

“Not where I want to be right now,” Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo after Monday’s loss. “So I have to keep going forward.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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