PHOENIX — There is no bigger wild card at the Los Angeles Dodgers’ spring training facility than Roki Sasaki, the Japanese phenom who possesses the ability of an ace but is coming off a disastrous rookie season as a starting pitcher.
Sasaki was courted by basically the entire industry coming out of Japan but struggled through his introduction to the major leagues. Through eight starts, he posted a 4.72 ERA and walked 14.3% of the hitters he faced, double the major league average. His velocity dropped, and a three-month stint on the injured list with a shoulder injury followed.
Though he emerged as a dominant back-end reliever in time for the playoffs, Sasaki’s ability to dominate hitters with his hellish fastball-splitter combination also emphasized something else: To succeed as a starting pitcher, he must develop a third pitch.
“Just adding a repertoire is going to be important against righties,” Sasaki said through an interpreter after Sunday’s workout. “The sliders that I threw last year weren’t good. Results wise, it wasn’t good, too.”
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On the surface, Sasaki’s slider wasn’t that bad; in his time as a starter, the expected slugging percentage off that pitch was merely .283. But the pitch’s limited usage — Sasaki threw it only 16.3% of the time, according to Baseball Savant — skewed the results. The quality of the pitch, according to scouts, was subpar. And so, Sasaki will spend a lot of this spring trying to home in on a pitch that can break away from right-handed hitters, which is even more important given that his fastball is relatively flat, making it hittable despite consistently reaching triple digits.
Sasaki said he is throwing cutters and sliders and has yet to decide which of the two he’ll stick with, though he later added that he’d like to “focus more on the gyro-spin slider” — a pitch that is thrown harder and whose movement is dictated by gravity. Eventually, Sasaki will also incorporate a two-seamer that runs in on right-handed hitters.
“Last year, I don’t think he was ever really in a great spot health wise until the end of the year,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said. “All of the stuff we’ve seen so far, he looks really, really good. I mean, the bullpens have been exceptional. The pitch movements he’s throwing — the cutter, sinker — he’s having an expanded arsenal. But if he’s executing the fastball and split the way he’s capable of, with what he’s done in the past, it’s an amazing foundation. And anything on top of that is just going to make things more challenging for the opposing hitters.”
After getting his mechanics in sync and shortening his repertoire, Sasaki became a revelation for a Dodgers team in desperate need of someone to hold leads out of the bullpen. In nine postseason relief appearances, he posted a 0.84 ERA, collected three saves and allowed just 11 of 43 batters to reach base. He was gassed by the end of the Dodgers’ World Series run in the eyes of some team officials, prompting a parade of starting pitchers to appear in Game 7.
Sasaki said the late-season success has given him “a whole different mindset” going into his second spring training. But he also believes that any shortcomings he experienced were completely under his own control.
“Reflecting back on my last year, I felt like I just stumbled with my own responsibility in the sense that it wasn’t really about the level of Major League Baseball or the hitters,” Sasaki said. “It was just really more about things that I could’ve controlled that I didn’t. So this year, coming into the year — my goal is to be able to pitch throughout the entire season. And I think that will allow me to be able to show what I have to work on in the big league level.”
