(This article was written with the assistance of Castmagic, an AI tool, and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy. Please reach out to us if you notice any mistakes.)
If you’ve been paying attention to the Dodgers this season — or the baseball sphere in general — you’ve probably heard plenty about Roki Sasaki. The hyped Japanese phenom was supposed to be one of the most exciting new pitchers in MLB.
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But here we are a few weeks in, and the “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” hosts, Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman, are asking a question Dodgers fans might be afraid to say out loud: Why has Sasaki looked … not great?
Let’s break down what Mintz and Shusterman discussed on their latest episode, because their take is one you don’t want to miss if you’re eager to see Sasaki become L.A.’s next ace — or if you’re feeling some early season anxiety.
Sasaki’s splitter remains disgusting
First, let’s start with the good. As Shusterman points out, “The splitter is still one of the best pitches in the world.” That’s not hyperbole. It bails Sasaki out of jams and makes big leaguers look downright silly. That’s why the hype around the young phenom didn’t seem overblown when he made the leap from NPB.
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Also, the Dodgers’ season is going swimmingly so far, even with some pitching struggles.
But the fastball … yikes, it needs help
Here’s where things get dicey. The fastball just isn’t playing. “He is getting no whiffs on it whatsoever,” Shusterman says. “He’s not throwing it hard enough to just blow it past guys. 96 [mph] is not fast enough to just live in the zone in the big leagues, especially when it doesn’t have plus life and your command isn’t very good.” What’s more, that’s not something that can be fixed with a simple grip tweak or extra bullpen session.
For now, Sasaki can survive, especially against weaker lineups like the Pirates’. He went deeper in his most recent outing Saturday against Pittsburgh — an improvement, to be sure. But the “puzzle” (as Mintz calls it) is figuring out how to make his fastball not just playable but a weapon. The hosts draw a parallel to the pre-draft skepticism about Paul Skenes’ fastball, although Skenes was throwing harder, and his command was significantly sharper.
Mintz and Shusterman both put their faith in the Dodgers’ pitch design machine. “I trust the Dodgers people to figure that out as much as I trust anybody,” Mintz says.
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This is L.A., after all — a club famous for turning project arms into All-Stars. And, as Shusterman notes, with other Dodgers arms dealing with injuries, “every Sasaki start just has more importance because it’s not like, oh, whatever, he’s the sixth starter … Now it becomes more important for him to figure it out.”
Patience and a little faith
What’s the lesson here? For Sasaki, the “fastball shape” problem is real, and it will take more than blind optimism to sort out. “If Roki was on the Rockies, if he was Rocky Sasaki, I would be like … he’s cooked. Like, he has no chance to ever figure it out,” Mintz jokes. But on the Dodgers? Hope remains.
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He isn’t a bust (far from it). But the version of Sasaki we all dreamed about will require a bit more patience, a lot of coaching and maybe a little bit of the Dodgers’ legendary pitching magic. For now, each start remains an audition of sorts for how this experiment will turn out.
Is Roki Sasaki the Dodgers’ next ace? Or a project? Or a puzzle? For now, maybe a little bit of all three. But with some faith in Sasaki’s splitter and the Dodgers’ pitching development apparatus, it’s going to be a blast to watch this story unfold.
For more on the Dodgers and other baseball debates, tune in to “Baseball-Bar-B-Cast” on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.
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