Japan is a country with baseball tradition and their players are in the eyes of the MLB because of their performance in the World Baseball Classic.
Dodgers come from one of their most dissapointing season endings in the last years. Despite being the second best team in the National League during the regular season, the Arizona Diamondbacks surprised them in the Divisional Round by sweeping them. Therefore, Dodgers want to add some players in key positions where they need talent.
The pitcher position is the weakest point of the Dodgers (that was one of the causes for the team to be eliminated). In the three games that they played in the postseason, their pitcher had a bad start that put them in disadvantage early in the game. That’s why the Dodgers are looking to improve their rotation of pitchers and the bullpen.
Throughout history, Japan has been known for their good devolopment of pitchers like Masahiro Tanaka and Ichiro Susuki. Nowadays, they have one of the best players in the MLB with Shohei Ohtani.
Dodgers seem to be the favorite team to sign Ohtani this offseason despite that he can’t pitch until 2025 because of a surgery he had on September.
In case they can’t sign Ohtani, Dodgers have another two japanese players in mind.
The first one is Roki Sazaki. The Monster of Reiwa Era has a speed of 103 mph in their pitches.
On April.10th,2022 was the first time that the world of baseball heard of him by having one of the best perfect games that is has ever been seen in baseball. The pitcher of the Chiba Lotte Marines made a record of strikeouts (19) in a perfect game (counting NPB and MLB).
Another player that interests the Dodgers, is Yoshinobu Yamamoto. When he announced that he was going to be on the MLB Market, Dodgers was one of the first teams that asked for their services.
This pitcher comes from having a great performance in the Japanese World Series where he threw a perfect game with 138 mph to force a game 7.
Information: Los Angeles Times
