Was Sasaki Over-Hyped?
 

I know he's only 23 and has had a lot 'placed in front of him', but ML hitters can hit ANY fastball -and until he proves he can control it, his so-called super breaking stuff won't be as much a factor.

Dodgers are still 4-0 - UGH!


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He had surreal control in Japan. Look at his numbers.

If I remember correctly, Yamamoto's early starts last year weren't the greatest, but he eventually settled in and had decent results overall for the season.

I was actually at the Dodgers game on Saturday and saw Sasaki's start. His control was definitely lacking, but talking to a number of Dodger fans sitting around me, no one was giving up on him after just 2 starts. Also, what were his spring training numbers like? Was his control better then?

Way too early to make assumptions. Nothing from his abbreviated 2024 season or his limited spring training appearances suggests an issue with control. IMO yesterday’s start is probably more of an outlier than an expectation. I’ve read the Dodgers spent some time this spring tweaking his mechanics and most of his misses Saturday were to his arm side so I wonder if he was trying to over adjust. Anywho… I think he’ll be fine.

Two games mean nothing in baseball. And maybe he was just nervous/too amped up from his first US start. His strikeout to walk ratio in Japan was off the charts. I suspect at least in that respect he will settle down. Whether he's truly Cy Young material, we'll have to wait a while to know.

I watched the game on TV. Certainly looked like nerves to me. 2 or 3 more starts like this and I would start to get concerned.

He definitely looks like a head case out there. He's lucky he's got Dave Roberts managing him. If it were some guy like Tony La Russa, I think Sasaki would be toast.

He's a 23 year old in a completely foreign setting in a new league with all new teammates. After 2 games people want to write him off? Come on.

Agreed. I'm sure 29 other teams would be happy to take him off the Dodgers hands if offered the chance.

To be clear, I'm not writing him off. I'm just saying that Dave Roberts is the right guy to be managing a talented, young pitcher in his second game in a foreign land, who is probably feeling the pressure of a nation on his shoulders.

Can you imagine if Roberts left him in and he gets shelled for 8 runs?

I think the days of feeling the pressure of the nation are long gone. Ichiro was the definitive I can play here player and Matsui and Ohtani have only further cemented that idea.

I'd agree with you. But that may not be how Sasaki feels about it.

Hideo Nomo might have something to say about this.

I thought of Nomo but I don't think he convinced anyone that Japanese players "belonged". He had an incredible rookie season but he lacked staying power and I remember a lot of people thinking his delivery was a gimmick that served him well only initially.

Not to say he wasn't good. I just think Ichiro was still the defining player from Japan who convinced MLB that Japanese players could not only do well upon arrival, but sustain a very high level of play.

Nomo was certainly the first, but I consider him in the same pool as Daisuke and Yu Darvish. Decent success but not in the same class as Ichiro and Matsui, though of course infinitely better than Irabu, Kei Igawa, Fukudome, etc.

It's hard to underestimate how much this kid has been hyped as a generational pitcher. Sure he feels enormous pressure to succeed.

I would argue that Nomo's 3 or 4 All-Star caliber years, ROY award, two top 5 Cy Young finishes, setting the record for K's in a player's first three seasons, Leasing each league in K's, and two no hitters definitely made MLB think, yeah we need to keep a closer eye on Japan. Without Nomo (and also the groundbreaking work done to get him to the US which is a fascinating story) the pipeline might not have opened up regardless of the talent. It might still have been thought of as inferior talent OR nobody might've spotted the loophole that led to the formation of the modern posting rules. If Nomo had tanked I won't say we wouldn't have Japanese players in the majors today, but it would've set the movement back a decade or more possibly costing the MLB the next generations of Japanese players like Matsui, Ichiro, and others.

While Nomo wasn't the impact player that Ichiro and Ohtani were/are, he was great enough to start the flow of talent.

Nomo was definitely a big deal.

Nomo will always be influential but I said Ichiro was the definitive “I belong here” player from Japan. Nomo's peak was brief despite his incredible rookie season and a slew of less effective players followed up in the years between his debut and Ichiro’s.

This is in context of having a nation on your shoulders, An idea I don’t think has really been on people’s minds since Ichiro so thoroughly dominated MLB play. The idea of playing with a nation on your shoulders would suggest that people aren’t sure you can hack it. I don’t think anyone has had that sentiment since Ichiro. I can definitely understand the pressure an individual puts on themself though and how it may feel like that to them.

I'm aware of what you said and I disagree, it's OK. But Nomo ABSOLUTELY had the pressure of the nation on his shoulders, perhaps more than any other player in history since he was the first "real" Japanese major leaguer, as Murakami was still under Japanese control when he played and was not allowed to stay in MLB.

Nomo-Mania was MASSIVE in Japan, and not insignificant here. If he had failed I think there's a real chance you never even see Ichiro and the other late 90's Japanese influx.

There’s a 19 year old playing for Stanford now named Rintaro Sasaki who is a lot like Nomo. He was the number 1 high school player in Japan but chose to skip NPB and instead enroll in a Division 1 school here.

1 run in 4 innings today, 3 hits.

I watched the game - his first inning was REALLY bad. He was lucky to give up only 1. He got some favorable calls on balls too, but overall he was much better