Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic <\/p>\n
DALLAS \u2014 Roki Sasaki\u2019s free agency is set to accelerate next week, with the Japanese pitching star expected to begin convening in the U.S. with interested teams, his agent said Tuesday at the Winter Meetings.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old Sasaki was officially posted in recent days by the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball. The twist is he\u2019s ineligible for a major league contract as a Japanese player under age 25 and must be signed using a team\u2019s international bonus pool money \u2014 as was the case when Shohei Ohtani arrived to MLB before the 2018 season.<\/p>\n
Sasaki throws a 100-mph fastball and supplements it with a splitter.<\/p>\n
The Mets have shown interest in Sasaki \u2014 president of baseball operations David Stearns traveled to Japan in September to watch him pitch. Stearns on Tuesday indicated the Mets remain interested and were in the process of preparing a video presentation for the pitcher.<\/p>\n
But Stearns said any potential meeting with Sasaki would be \u201cinvitation only,\u201d meaning the Mets will have to wait and see if Sasaki is interested enough to proceed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to give it our best shot,\u201d Stearns said. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult in these processes to truly understand what a player\u2019s preference is. This isn\u2019t a normal free-agent recruitment process, so we\u2019re going to submit our presentation and materials, just like everyone else, and we\u2019ll wait for his camp\u2019s feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mets have a total international bonus pool of $6.2 million for 2025. Of that amount, $5 million is committed to highly regarded Elian Pena, a 16-year-old shortstop.<\/p>\n
Other than reneging on their agreement with Pena, the Mets\u2019 other path to additional bonus pool money would be through a trade. Teams are allowed to trade for up to 50 percent of their bonus pool allotment.<\/p>\n
But Sasaki\u2019s agent Joel Wolfe said he\u2019s spoken to his client about not necessarily chasing dollars, given that the floor and ceiling for many deals will be so close. Once signed, Sasaki would receive the major league minimum until he\u2019s eligible for arbitration, after three seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bonus pool amounts are so negligible, my advice to him is don\u2019t make a decision based on that because the long term of your career is where you earn your money,\u201d Wolfe said. \u201cIt\u2019s probably not advisable to make a short-term decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wolfe indicated Sasaki will sign with a team between Jan. 15 and 22 \u2014 with the earliest date preferable so the pitcher can obtain a work visa that would allow him to begin spring training on time.<\/p>\n
Wolfe was asked why Sasaki would jump to MLB now rather than wait until he\u2019s 25, when he could chase a significant contract. Last winter, Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto (also represented by Wolfe) landed a record contract for a pitcher: $325 million over 12 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of it is Japanese culture, some of it is Roki Sasaki,\u201d Wolfe said. \u201cThere are no absolutes in baseball and through Roki\u2019s eyes there are no absolutes in life \u2026 if you look at some of the things that have happened in his life, he does not take anything for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sasaki\u2019s father and grandparents died in the 2011 tsunami that struck the Tohoku region of Japan, when Sasaki was nine years old. The family\u2019s home was also destroyed in the disaster and he had to live in a nursing home with his mother and two brothers during the recovery.<\/p>\n
Wolfe said it\u2019s possible Sasaki would consider a small market given his negative experiences with the media at home in Japan. Much of the criticism has stemmed from Sasaki\u2019s desire in recent years to leave for MLB. It wasn\u2019t until this week that he was granted his wish and posted by Chiba Lotte.<\/p>\n
But Wolfe said all options will be considered. The industry perception is the Dodgers and Padres are the favorites for the pitcher because of geography.<\/p>\n
Sasaki still hasn\u2019t had substantial conversations with Wolfe about what he\u2019s looking for in a new team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best I can say is he has paid attention to how teams have done as far as overall success, both this year and in the recent past,\u201d Wolfe said. \u201cHe does watch a lot of Major League Baseball. He\u2019s paid attention to what his WBC teammates have done. He asked a lot of questions about weather, about comfortability, about pitching development and watching how other Japanese players in the major leagues are doing.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic DALLAS \u2014 Roki Sasaki\u2019s free agency is set to accelerate next week, with the Japanese pitching star expected to begin convening in the U.S. with interested teams, his agent said Tuesday at the Winter Meetings. The 23-year-old Sasaki was officially posted in recent days<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":149656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-149655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149657,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149655\/revisions\/149657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}