‘Baseball America’, an American baseball magazine, announces the ranking of prospects ahead of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) every year. Many of the players on this list of prospects have had experience entering the major leagues under good conditions. A significant number of Korean major leaguers also came from this ranking.
1 in the rankings in 2023 was Chiba Lotte’s Young Gun Sasaki Loki (22). Japan’s best pitcher, Yamamoto Yoshinobu (Orix), Murakami Munetaka (Yakult), who set the home run record last year, and Lee Jung-hoo (Kiwoom), the best player in the KBO league, rose to the top spot. He has all the conditions to succeed as a starter with his innate talent to throw a fast ball that can reach a maximum speed of 165 km/h. Last year, he played a historic perfect game and garnered worldwide attention.
Such Sasaki has already been a famous player among big league scouts since his high school days, and as expected, he is driving major league club scouts. He still has a long way to go to fill up the number of years that will allow him to enter the major leagues, but the big leagues are already watching his growth process. The procession reached its peak at the WBC, where you can see many players from all over the world in one place.
A major league Asia scout who responded to an interview with ‘Daily Gendai’ said, “There are 22-23 clubs that sent scouts from Tokyo Dome (where this tournament was held), but 30 major league clubs are paying attention to Sasaki Rocky.” All clubs obtained data such as speed and rotation of fastballs and breaking balls, and they are evaluated as excellent even when compared to the major league average,” he explained the atmosphere. 온라인바카라
He also praised Sasaki’s talent, saying, “Anyway, he throws four-seams and breaking balls over 160km into the strike zone with detailed pitches.” He will definitely be number one among Japanese pitchers.”
Ohtani has garnered explosive interest from major league clubs, in part because he has a unique talent for success as both a pitcher and a hitter. In fact, the Los Angeles Angels believed that Ohtani could do both pitching and hitting, and Ohtani is changing the history of modern baseball that way. However, it seems that there are some evaluations that Sasaki is better when compared to the same age in terms of ‘pitcher’ only.
Sasaki is tentatively appointed as the starting pitcher for the semifinal against Mexico, which will be held on the 21st at 8:00 am (Korean time). Mexico, which created a sensation by defeating the United States in the first round of the finals, is a team that stands out for its well-organized batting line. It has a different power and momentum than the teams Japan has faced so far. If Sasaki can safely block more than four innings, another good line can be written in the major league club scouting report.