Roki Sasaki

Roki Sasaki was born on 3 November 2001 in Rikuzentakata, Iwate. As a child he survived the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that killed his father and grandparents; the family later rebuilt in Ōfunato, where he became a high-school pitching phenom nicknamed the “Monster of the Reiwa Era.”

Chiba Lotte selected him first overall in 2019 and held him back from game action in 2020 to protect his arm. He debuted in 2021 and threw a perfect game in 2022. Injuries limited his innings in later NPB seasons, but the stuff — triple-digit fastball and splitter — still made him Japan’s most watched young pitcher. He helped Samurai Japan win the 2023 World Baseball Classic.

Because he was under 25, his 2025 move to the Los Angeles Dodgers came on a minor-league deal with a large bonus rather than a nine-figure MLB free-agent contract. Japanese fans follow Dodgers starts as domestic sports television; his path is the latest chapter in the NPB-to-MLB pipeline that runs from Ichiro through Ohtani and Yamamoto.

The bet was never really about whether he could throw hard. It was whether a pitcher with a short NPB innings sample and a famous nickname could hold up under an MLB workload and Los Angeles scrutiny. Early seasons will look messy by design. The career will be decided by health and whether the splitter still misses bats when hitters have a full book on him.