The Opener: International Free Agency, Sasaki, Burnes

How Roki Sasaki’s life, career and outlook were shaped by disaster
Stephen J. Nesbitt
Jan 14, 2025
It was 2:46 p.m. on a Friday when the walls around Tomoyuki Murakami started to shake. He scrambled for cover inside the city hall in Rikuzentakata, a fishing village along Japan’s mountainous northeast coast. Murakami, a city official, had never felt an earthquake so strong. Plaster cracked. Picture frames fell and shattered. The floor sank in spots. The shaking lasted six minutes.

“I thought I was going to die in that city hall,” Murakami said recently, through an interpreter.

In Murakami’s office was a picture of the Little Leaguers he coached, a team photo taken the previous year at the baseball field by the water’s edge, flanked by a forest of 70,000 pines designated one of the most scenic places in the country. In the second row was a tall 8-year-old, Roki Sasaki. He was one of the youngest boys in the Little League program, tagging along with his older brother, Ryuki, the team’s shortstop. The coach had noticed Sasaki’s strong arm when playing catch, but it wasn’t until the last scrimmage of the season that Sasaki was allowed to pitch. He struck out the side in his first inning. “That,” Murakami said, “was when I realized.”

Today Sasaki, now 23, is one of the most coveted pitchers on the planet, a potential ace poised to sign with a Major League Baseball club within a week. But that day — March 11, 2011 — Sasaki was in a third-grade classroom at Takata Elementary School. As aftershocks rumbled and tsunami warnings rang out, teachers hurried the children to higher ground behind the school.

Murakami’s training in disaster response had taught him that after a major earthquake, Rikuzentakata could be hit with a tsunami high enough to flood the first floor of city hall. Even when a firefighter radioed, a half hour after the earthquake, that waves had overcome the town’s 18-foot sea wall, Murakami had no way of knowing the scale of the unfolding disaster. He helped residents to the second floor of city hall. After assisting an elderly woman who could no longer walk, Murakami turned and saw the water rapidly approaching. He fled to the fourth-story roof, arriving just as the tsunami tore through the building beneath him.

Only those who made it to the roof survived.

Rikuzentakata, Japan. March 11, 2011. (Courtesy of Fumiaki Konno)

The Tohoku earthquake — the strongest recorded in Japan, at a magnitude of 9.1 — and resulting tsunami killed more than 18,000 and remains the costliest natural disaster to date. Rikuzentakata, which had 23,300 residents before the tsunami, reported 1,800 dead or missing.

Sasaki’s father and paternal grandparents died. His father, Kota, had been at work, helping run a funeral parlor, a few blocks from home. The neighborhood was flattened.

The waves reached the front steps of the elementary school, spewing wreckage across the playground where Sasaki’s Little League team was scheduled to start practices later that month. The death toll might have been far worse had the tsunami happened when students were home.

“The children who went to higher ground were saved,” Murakami said.

Murakami’s mother picked up his 6-year-old son, Yuta, at his nursery school after the earthquake. He presumes they went home, to the house the family had just built. He doesn’t know for sure. Their bodies were never found.

Two years ago, on the 12th anniversary of the tsunami, residents in Rikuzentakata crowded into an auditorium at a new community center built into a hillside looking out toward Hirota Bay. They were there to watch Sasaki take the ball in Tokyo, a six-hour drive south, to pitch for Samurai Japan in a World Baseball Classic game against the Czech Republic.

“Watching him pitch inspires us in the ravaged region,” Murakami said that day. “His pitching on March 11 is a fateful event. He is our hope.”

Stepping in against Sasaki in the first inning, Eric Sogard, an 11-year major leaguer, knew nothing of Sasaki’s story, only his stuff. Sogard fouled off a 101 mph fastball and waved at two devastating splitters, striking out on four pitches. “The dude is electric,” Sogard recalled. “The real deal.” That seemed to be the consensus after Sasaki struck out eight over 3 2/3 innings, with 20 of his 21 fastballs exceeding 100 mph. He drew headlines for delivering an apology and candy to a batter he’d hit in the knee with a fastball. Another headline called Sasaki “baseball’s next great ace.”

But manager Hideki Kuriyama had not given Sasaki that start as an international showcase. The game held greater meaning, and Sasaki had met the moment. “It’s hard to explain,” Kuriyama said afterward, “but to me, it’s as if he is throwing his soul, not the baseball.”

Sasaki does not speak often about the tsunami and all he lost. (He declined to be interviewed for this story.) When he does, he speaks of the fear he felt that day, his desperation for normalcy afterward and his desire to live life to the fullest. The disaster that ripped apart his hometown dictated so much of what has come after for Sasaki; its echoes can be seen in his rise through the Japanese high school ranks, in how he handled his early success in Nippon Professional Baseball, and ultimately, in his decision to leave Japan this offseason to jump to the majors earlier than expected.

“I cannot easily erase the agony and sadness I felt at the time,” Sasaki said in 2021. “I only have a sense of gratitude to those who supported me.” He implored those too young to have seen the tsunami to “not take for granted the things they have now and the precious people around them.”

After their home was swept away, Sasaki’s widowed mother, Yoko, and her three sons — Ryuki, Roki and Reiki — stayed temporarily at a nursing home in Rikuzentakata before moving to Ofunato, a city 10 miles up the coast. They had lost everything they weren’t carrying with them on that Friday afternoon, but Sasaki clung to his love for baseball.

“I was happiest playing baseball,” he said, “because I could lose myself for stretches of time. I felt I was able to give my best even through hard times and heartbreaking times.”

The photo of Tomoyuki Murakami’s Little League team, with Roki Sasaki and his brother Ryuki pictured. (Courtesy of Tomoyuki Murakami)
The next Murakami heard of Sasaki, he was a middle schooler with a fastball pushing 88 mph and a lower-back injury threatening to end his pitching career. But Sasaki healed and grew into a tall, rail-thin teenage sensation as a high schooler. He turned down private schools with prestigious baseball programs to keep playing with his friends in Ofunato.

Scouts from across Japan and the United States flocked to ballfields in Iwate prefecture to see Sasaki pitch. After Sasaki hit triple digits on a scout’s radar gun in May 2019, Murakami learned Sasaki had earned a designation, kaibutsu, reserved for generational young pitchers.

Reiwa no kaibutsu.

The Monster of the Reiwa era.

At 18, Sasaki turned down a chance to sign with a major-league club as an amateur to take a final run at Summer Koshien, a national high school baseball tournament that is the largest amateur sporting event in Japan. Ofunato had not reached Koshien in 35 years.

Watching Sasaki pitch Ofunato into a qualifying game for Koshien — a regional final against Hanamaki Higashi High School, the powerhouse that produced Shohei Ohtani and Yusei Kikuchi — Murakami knew the weight on Sasaki’s shoulders. Murakami, a right fielder in his youth, had led Takata High School to its only trip to Koshien. Later in life, when Murakami faced a challenge in his academics or career, he reminded himself, If I could get to Koshien, I could do anything.

Sasaki had thrown 435 pitches over eight days, including a 194-pitch outing in which he hit 101 mph — breaking Ohtani’s record for hardest pitch thrown by a high schooler — and struck out 21 in a complete game he won with a home run in the 12th inning. Even after throwing 129 pitches in the regional semifinal, he expected to start the final the next day. Aces rarely rest on the road to Koshien. Daisuke Matsuzaka, nicknamed the Monster of the Heisei era, once threw 398 pitches in two days.

“It’s the dream of every high school kid to pitch in Koshien,” said author Robert Whiting, who has written about Japanese baseball since the 1970s.

But manager Yohei Kokubo sat Sasaki in the final. Ofunato lost, 12-2. Afterward, Kokubu said he was trying to prevent injury: “He may have been fit to throw today, but it was my decision.”

Roki Sasaki watches as players from Hanamaki Higashi celebrate their victory over Sasaki’s Ofunato High School in Iwate Prefecture’s high school baseball tournament in July 2019. (Kyodo via Associated Press)
A reporter asked Kokubu: Is winning less important than Sasaki’s future?

That question has hung over much of Sasaki’s baseball existence. His future has been the subject of fascination across the baseball universe since the first videos of him pitching were posted on the internet. After Ohtani’s smooth transition to MLB, even more evaluators are ready to dream upon the future of the next great Japanese teen. Kokobu’s decision made Sasaki a lightning rod. Isao Harimoto, the NPB hit king, said, “It’s not just Sasaki’s team. The players have practiced all their lives to achieve the dream of going to sacred Koshien.” Yu Darvish, another pitcher who had risked his arm and made his name in Koshien, disagreed: “For a pitcher who is in the national spotlight as much as he is, it was a courageous stand to protect his future.”

When the Chiba Lotte Marines drafted Sasaki No. 1 overall in the 2019 NPB draft, manager Tadahito Iguchi and pitching coach Masato Yoshii, both former major leaguers, exercised similar caution with Sasaki. Rather than risk Sasaki joining the long list of high school stars blowing out early in their pro careers, Yoshii, who had earned a master’s degree in physical education to further his understanding of pitching mechanics, scripted a plan for Sasaki to build strength. Sasaki didn’t pitch in a game during his first season as a pro, throwing only bullpen sessions and simulated games in 2020. He pitched part of the 2021 season in the minors and had extra rest between starts. “There was little they could do other than let him grow into his body, which they were willing to do,” said the writer Jim Allen, who covers Japanese baseball.

Yoshii seemed to agree with Kokubu: Sasaki had a future worth protecting.

One day during the 2021 season, Sasaki approached three teammates in the clubhouse — former big leaguers Brandon Laird, Leonys Martín and Adeiny Hechevarría — with a question:

“Do you think I’m good enough to pitch in the majors?”

“Absolutely,” Laird replied.

“Really?” Sasaki asked.

Laird grinned. Sasaki’s fastball crackled in the triple digits, and his split-fingered fastball flummoxed batters.

“I don’t think you’re going to have a problem over there, man,” Laird said.

Sasaki made his dream to pitch in the majors no secret. Former Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Gregory Polanco, who played for Chiba Lotte in 2024, told the Washington Post last spring that Sasaki asked about the majors every day: “I go in there, and he’s joking around: ‘I’m going to this team, I’m going to that team!’ He’s so ready to go.”

As a child, Sasaki drew inspiration from watching Masahiro Tanaka, the Rakuten Eagles ace who had visited schools in Iwate prefecture after the tsunami. In 2013, Tanaka went 24-0, led the Eagles to their first Japan Series title, then signed with the New York Yankees. Sasaki wanted to one day follow in Tanaka’s footsteps to the majors. “I hope that I too can bring such joy and hope to children,” Sasaki told the Post.

Roki Sasaki celebrates his perfect game against the Orix Buffaloes in April 2022. (Sports Nippon / Getty Images)
Any doubt observers harbored about Sasaki’s ability to dominate pro hitters vanished on April 10, 2022, when he threw a perfect game against the Orix Buffaloes. Sasaki struck out the third hitter of the game, reigning batting champion Masataka Yoshida, then struck out the side in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings. His 13 consecutive strikeouts in a game were a Japanese baseball record, far surpassing the MLB record of 10 in a row.

“It was unfair,” Laird recalled. “Boom, boom, boom. One of the coolest things I’ve ever witnessed.”

In the visiting clubhouse, Orix reliever Jesse Biddle watched on a TV with the team’s analytics staff. Several years prior, Biddle had seen a video of Sasaki pitching in high school and thought, Is that sped up? Now the kid was carving up the eventual Japan Series champions. “It was laughable what was happening,” Biddle said. By the ninth inning, Biddle had moved to the bullpen. The crowd roared with each strike. The stadium radar clocked Sasaki again at 101 mph.

“I don’t care what anybody says,” Biddle said. “He was throwing 110.”

Sasaki fired the final pitch — a splitter for his 19th strikeout — and raised his arms. The Monster of the Reiwa era, the son of Rikuzentakata, had just thrown the first perfect game in the Japanese majors since 1994. (Sasaki then followed one of the greatest games ever pitched with a near replica. In his next start, Sasaki threw eight perfect innings — running his total of consecutive outs to 52 — before Iguchi pulled him, in another attempt to protect his arm.)

On the Orix bus after Sasaki’s perfect game, the Buffaloes licked their wounds, and two former big leaguers debated. Breyvic Valera groused about a few calls. Just one more at-bat, Valera said, and he would have had Sasaki. Rangel Ravelo cut off his teammate, shaking his head.

“That wasn’t a pitcher we faced today,” Ravelo said. “That was a god.”

Sasaki’s second chance to sign with a major-league club wasn’t supposed to come for another two years. Most Japanese stars who leave for the United States do so after 25, when they are permitted to sign a free-agent contract like Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s $325 million megadeal with the Los Angeles Dodgers. (The Dodgers, San Diego Padres and Toronto Blue Jays are the finalists to sign Sasaki.) By leaving at 23, like Ohtani did, Sasaki is considered an amateur, with his payday restricted to the amount available in each MLB team’s international bonus pool.

For Sasaki, waiting could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

“If he wanted money,” Allen said, “he’d stay in Japan for two years.”

Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, said he first met Sasaki a few years ago when they were connected by another client, former major leaguer Yoshi Tsutsugo. It was immediately evident that Sasaki intended to pitch in the majors sooner than later. “He wanted to make sure that I was up for the challenge with him,” Wolfe said at MLB’s Winter Meetings in Dallas last month. “It was going to be very difficult. He knew he was going to be subject to a lot of criticism in the media.”

That criticism has come, much of it aired by former NPB players who feel Sasaki has not earned the right to walk away early. By 23, Ohtani had won hardware and a Japan Series title. Sasaki has not. He did not pitch particularly well last season, missing time with shoulder fatigue as his velocity and stuff dipped. He has not yet pitched a full NPB season, won a title or contended for a Sawamura Award, the Japanese equivalent to the Cy Young. So, why now?

“Given what’s happened in his life,” Wolfe said, “I think he looks at the world very differently.”

Maybe there would be a $300 million deal on the table in two years. Maybe not.

“There are no absolutes in baseball,” Wolfe said. “And the way Roki looks at life, there are no absolutes in life.”

In Rikuzentakata, Murakami finds that worldview pervasive among young tsunami survivors.

“People that have undergone trauma like this, experiencing a tsunami and having loved ones pass away, you have a change in your thought process,” he said. “If you have something you want to do, do it. You only live once.”

March 11 — 3.11 — is now a day of national mourning. This spring marks 14 years since the disaster. Only one of the 70,000 pines on the Rikuzentakata waterfront survived the tsunami. They call it the Miracle Pine. Engineers moved earth and gravel from the mountains to rebuild the city center on a manmade plateau more than 20 feet high. Many residents retreated to homes at higher elevations. The view of the bay is now obstructed by a 41-foot sea wall, a structure not tall enough to halt a tsunami the same size as 2011 — waves were as high as 60 feet — but enough to buy time to evacuate.

Fumiaki Konno, a local tour guide who escaped the tsunami by climbing a Shinto shrine hill, described the dichotomy many survivors still hold, having had so much washed away, yet knowing they were the lucky ones. “I lost everything,” he said, “but I had my life.”

Fumiaki Konno narrowly escaped the tsunami in Rikuzentakata by climbing the hill located directly behind his home (pictured left). (Courtesy of Fumiaki Konno)
Technically, 200 are still missing in Rikuzentakata. It wasn’t until two years after the tsunami that Murakami filed the paperwork pronouncing his 6-year-old son dead. Only after his daughter was born, Murakami said, “I had the courage to submit both the certificate of birth for my daughter and the certificate of death for my son at the same time.” Murakami adjusted his glasses. He spoke quietly. “If he was still with us, this would be his coming-of-age year,” he said.

Murakami still works as a city official. He no longer coaches baseball, but he has taken on a new responsibility: president of the Roki Sasaki fan club in Rikuzentakata. The group organizes watch parties and distributes merchandise. Their posters hang throughout city hall.

Images: Google Earth
Sasaki returns to his hometown whenever he visits his mother in Ofunato. He goes to his favorite restaurant, Shikairo, where his photos adorn the wall and a signed Chiba Lotte jersey is on display. Sasaki stops at the funeral home to see his late father’s colleagues. Then he heads down toward the water. There’s a new athletic complex near the sea wall, and from time to time in the offseason, Sasaki can be seen training on one of the baseball fields.

He was there in November, in the weeks before flying to Los Angeles to meet with MLB clubs for the first time. Murakami spoke with Sasaki on that visit, not only about the realization of Sasaki’s major-league dream, but about how his dreams have continued to grow. Now Sasaki sees his future the same way his first baseball coach always has. Far more than the money, Sasaki wants to become one of the great pitchers to have played the game.

“From the bottom of my heart,” Murakami said, “I’m so proud of him.”