“It’s not right to take away money that will change the lives of players”
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic in the U.S. said on the 20th (Korea time), “If Rocky Sasaki signs a contract, other international amateurs will suffer,” adding, “They should not do that.”
Sasaki, who achieved the youngest “perfect game” in Japanese professional baseball in 2022 and helped the Japanese national team win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) in 2023, will be able to challenge the Major League after leaving a career record of 29-15 with a 2.10 ERA in four seasons, including 10-5 wins and a 2.35 ERA in 18 appearances this year.
Sasaki hoped to advance to the Major League after the end of the last season, but failed to advance to the big leagues after Chiba Lotte Marines refused to allow her to do so. However, it was different this year. After discussions over the result of contributing to Chiba Lotte’s advance to the post season by securing his first double-digit win in his career, he decided to allow Sasaki to challenge. This was a very difficult and difficult decision for Chiba Lotte.
The reason is that he gains little from Sasaki’s transfer. Sasaki is a player under the age of 25 and is classified as an international amateur, not a professional. Therefore, he cannot enter the Major League through the general posting system. He can only sign minor league contracts. This issue is also directly related to the price of his body. While there is no “limit” to general posting, international amateurs have a fixed amount of money that each club can use every year.
According to the U.S. ESPN, the amount of money that can be used for international amateurs (bonus pool) will be reset on December 16, and Sasaki can sign a contract of up to $7.56 million (KRW 105) if it joins hands with the team with the largest number of bonus pools. However, compared to transfers through a general posting system, the amount that falls to Chiba Lotte as well as Sasaki is not that large. For this reason, it is said that Chiba Lotte allowed Sasaki to challenge on a grand scale.
However, there is a problem. Assuming that all clubs can use 7.56 million U.S. dollars to sign with international amateurs, they have to spend all of their money to keep Sasaki, which would make it impossible to sign with promising players from Central and South America. The 7.56 million dollars is enough to accommodate dozens of players from Central and South America. Ken Rosenthal, a renowned reporter for The Athletic, also pointed out the issue on Tuesday.
Rosenthal said, “The expectation that Loki Sasaki will advance to the Major League is likely to have unintended consequences. In other words, there could be teenage Latin American prospects who will be abandoned by the team that signed Sasaki. If Sasaki waits for the Bonus Pool reset, he will use the entire Bonus Pool to recruit him. This will almost certainly break the verbal contract with Latin American players,” insisting that Sasaki should sign a contract through an amount other than the Bonus Pool.
Rosenthal continued, “It is not right to deprive players of money that will change their lives. And baseball should not allow that to happen. The system of signing international amateur players has long been broken. Since the amount a team can pay to that player is limited, they try to maximize it. Therefore, there are cases where they sign oral contracts with players long before they sign international amateur contracts. This is technically prohibited, but it is not binding.”
Rosenthal explained that institutional problems eventually lead to such problems. “If we exclude Sasaki from the international amateur bonanza pool, even a single exception would create uncomfortable questions,” he said. “However, this issue is not complicated. The current labor-management agreement (CBA) expires on December 1, 2026. No player has the talent of Sasaki for the next two years. Therefore, we just need to agree on an international draft in the new labor-management agreement.”
He added, “There are other options not to make an exception for Sasaki. The goal is to increase the bonus pool for the other 29 clubs to recruit players who have suffered damage. There is no perfect answer, but baseball players have said that when you have to accept a difficult situation, you have to admit it and find a way to overcome it.”
However, it is unlikely that there will be a dramatic change in the current system amid the tightness of Sasaki’s entry into the big league. If the club holding Sasaki puts all of its bonners into it, it will clearly block dozens of prospects from China and South America from seeking to advance to the big league through minor league contracts. 메이저놀이터
