Roki Sasaki, the most recent Japanese pitching phenom to arise and cross over into Major League Baseball, inked an arrangement with the Los Angeles Dodgers last month, ending a sweepstakes for the 23-year-old pitcher that went on for several weeks of the offseason.

Dodgers GM Andrew Friedman, in his new interview with Foul Territory, made sense of how the Dodgers had the option to convince Sasaki to join them in Los Angeles, including notice of a specific roster advantage the team has with Shohei Ohtani.

Andrew Friedman explains how the two-way player designation gives the Dodgers a roster-building edge, and played a key role in their pitch to Roki Sasaki. 👇 pic.twitter.com/kMwfW2wToO

— Dodgers Territory (@LADTerritory) February 10, 2025

Friedman noticed that there is a limit on the number of pitchers (13, to be precise) that can be on a team’s active 26-man roster. With Ohtani’s unique assignment as a two-way player, be that as it may, the Dodgers don’t need to guarantee him as one of their 13 pitchers. This permits Los Angeles to still have their five starting pitchers—with one of them being Ohtani—as well as a cast of eight relief pitchers in their bullpen.

Friedman called attention to that since they can convey another relief pitcher than most teams do, “no team was better prepared to bring him [Sasaki] along in the Major Leagues [than the Dodgers.]”

It seems OK that Sasaki would see the value in the Dodgers’ pitching adaptability. All things considered, the best capacity for baseball players—and players of all sports, so far as that is concerned—is availability, and having an additional arm at the big-league level will be incredibly advantageous during the long grind of the season. Having another person on the pitching staff to assist with extending the responsibility of nine innings day after day could pricelessly affect keeping pitchers healthy.

With their addition of Sasaki, the Dodgers, coming off their 2024 World Series Championship win, their second title in five seasons, are entering the 2025 season with an exceptionally appealing starting rotation. Los Angeles’ rotation is featured by a trio of Japanese stars: the previously mentioned Sasaki and Ohtani, as well as Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Complimenting that talented trio are Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. Tony Gonsolin stays a considerable starting option as well.