#Roki in japanese upgrade

At 17, Sasaki was christened kaibutsu no reiwa - the Monster of the Reiwa era, referencing the time period under the current Japanese emperor.

Sasaki's exploits earned him the title of kaibutsu, the Japanese word for monster, an honor reserved typically for Koshien standouts such as Daisuke Matsuzaka. He threw nearly 500 pitches over eight days for Ofunato High School, including a 12-inning complete game in which he struck out 21 batters on 194 pitches. Sasaki became renowned around Japan in 2019 during Koshien, Japan's national high school baseball tournament that is an amalgamation of March Madness and the Super Bowl. 'If that's the best in the world, he has the ability to be that.' 'He has all of the ingredients to be whatever he aspires to be,' an evaluator who has seen Sasaki multiple times said. And considering Sasaki also throws a slider and curveball - one person who has studied his Trackman data believes the two pitches, with some easy tweaks, can become dominant offerings - he could soon replicate the versatility of Ohtani's arsenal, too.

At worst, he is a Jacob deGrom starter kit, with his splitter as a stand-in for deGrom's slider. Ideally proportioned (just shy of 6-foot-4 and 203 pounds) and mechanically sound (his complicated delivery belies its spot-on timing), Sasaki is everything teams look for in a pitcher. Sasaki generated 22 swinging strikes against the Czech team, drawing whiffs on one-third of the pitches he threw. Since Major League Baseball began tracking pitches using Statcast in 2008, only once has a starter unleashed as many 100 mph-plus fastballs in a game with fewer pitches thrown than Sasaki: Jordan Hicks, on July 12, 2022, with 24 of his 38 pitches. Twenty-one of them clocked in at more than 100 mph. Of Sasaki's 66 pitches against the Czech Republic, 36 were fastballs. Sasaki possesses two demon pitches: the fastball that still crackles with unmatched velocity and an apparition of a split-fingered fastball that renders standard bat paths worthless. Although the Czech lineup consisted of one former major leaguer (Eric Sogard), a pair of former minor leaguers (Martin Cervenka and Jakub Hajtmar) and six others with no affiliated experience, the raw excellence of Sasaki's repertoire looked to evaluators like it would play against the world's finest hitters just the same. In his first appearance on an international stage the size of the WBC's - every game this week at LoanDepot Park is sold out, and half of the TVs in Japan are tuning in to watch their team that is 5-0 in the tournament - Sasaki threw 3.2 innings, struck out eight and allowed one unearned run against the Czech Republic. Monday night's start against Mexico in the World Baseball Classic semifinals marks his introduction to an American audience certain to spend the coming years frothing for his permanent arrival. Yes, right there with his Samurai Japan teammate Shohei Ohtani, whose national record he broke for the fastest pitch ever thrown by a high schooler four years ago. Roki Sasaki is 21 years old, and in the eyes of some talent evaluators, he is already in the discussion for the title of best pitcher in the world.

WBC 2023: Japan's Roki Sasaki is baseball's next great ace

#Roki in japanese upgrade

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