Dodgers place Roki Sasaki on IL with shoulder issue amid slow start to phenom’s MLB career

Roki Sasaki’s rookie year has not been going according to plan, and now the Los Angeles Dodgers are hitting the pause button.

The team announced Tuesday it is placing the Japanese phenom on the 15-day injured list with a right shoulder impingement. Reliever J.P. Feyereisen was recalled in a corresponding move.

Unless his placement is retroactive, Sasaki will be eligible to return on May 28.

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The move comes with Sasaki holding a 4.72 ERA, a 6.17 FIP, a 1.485 WHIP and a bunch of other unimpressive numbers. After sitting at 100 mph in the 2023 World Baseball Classic and in the high 90s in Japan last year, his fastball is averaging 96 mph so far this season per Baseball Savant.

It was only 94.8 mph in his most recent start, in which he allowed five earned runs and five hits with no strikeouts in four innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts confirmed Tuesday Sasaki felt arm soreness after the start.

All of this has been far worse than what many expected from Sasaki as he made a much-hyped transition to MLB.

Can the Dodgers fix Roki Sasaki?

Sasaki sent shockwaves throughout baseball when he was posted by his Chiba Lotte Marines team in Japan’s NPB, foregoing a potential nine-figure deal he could have landed had he come over two years later. With his price limited by international bonus pools, he was hyped as potentially one of the biggest bargains in baseball history.

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Few were surprised when Sasaki opted to join the reigning World Series champions on a $6.5 million deal, giving him the change to play for a perennial contender with two Team Japan teammates.

It all seemed too good to not work out for the Dodgers, but here we are, with Sasaki on the injured list after eight replacement-level starts.

Sasaki entered MLB with a three-pitch arsenal: his high-velocity four-seam fastball, one of the best splitters in the world and a slider he was still working on last year. The splitter has been as advertised, but hitters have feasted on the fastball, slugging .494 against it.

Regardless of changing leagues, that’s what happens when a four-seamer goes from one of the fastest in the world to just another mid-90s offering. Roberts said Tuesday the team is still trying to figure things out with Sasaki’s fastball:

“I think that there’s command component. I think there’s a ‘go out there and try to compete every fifth or sixth day to get major-league hitters out.’ We’re still trying to have conversations to see where he’s at, because at the end of the day, we want to make sure that he is performing up to his capabilities and up to our capabilities and expectations. There’s a lot of things that we’re trying to suss out right now with Roki.”

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Sasaki entered MLB as one of the most-hyped prospects in living memory, in the zip code of Paul Skenes and Stephen Strasburg. However, it’s becoming increasingly clear he did not enter the league as a finished product like his teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who accomplished much more in NPB before coming over.

None of this is to say Sasaki is already a bust. He is 23 years old and only in his first few months of adjusting to both big-league hitting and the Dodgers’ player-development machine. The IL stint could be as much a get-right period to avoid a demotion as it is a response to injury. Still, none of this is ideal.