Meet the Japanese company that irked MLB execs during the Roki Sasaki sweepstakes

The seating arrangement revealed the true power dynamic behind the pursuit of Roki Sasaki. The coveted pitcher’s American agent, Joel Wolfe, occupied the end of a long table. He was separated from the player, who sat at the middle, within easy whispering range of his Japanese representative, who would increasingly be perceived as the person in charge: Tomoki Sakai.

Only a corporate logo was missing from this show of influence: that of Sakai’s employer, Dentsu.

The meeting was one of many conducted last offseason between Sasaki, 23, and major-league clubs pursuing him as a free agent. When Sasaki wanted to share a private thought, he turned to Sakai, and not simply because they spoke the same language. Wolfe later told one of the team executives present that, aside from making opening and closing remarks, Sasaki instructed him not to ask questions during the meeting, not to speak.

One of the largest advertising agencies in the world, reaching into many elements of everyday Japanese life, Dentsu is one of the most powerful companies in the country. In the Sasaki negotiations, its influence seemingly extended into the boardrooms where the right-hander weighed a decision that would be scrutinized on both sides of the Pacific.

Sasaki ultimately agreed to join the Los Angeles Dodgers, who begin their defense of the World Series championship on Tuesday against the Cubs in Tokyo. But nearly two months later, rival executives continue to simmer over how his recruiting process unfolded.

For many, the target of frustration is not Wolfe, who as executive vice president of the Wasserman agency also represents two other Japanese pitchers, the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto and San Diego Padres’ Yu Darvish, as well as several other major-league stars. Several of the teams point the finger at Sakai and, by extension, Dentsu.

“Dentsu had an agenda and it just never felt like we truly fit with whatever that agenda was,” said one head of baseball operations who pursued Sasaki and, like others quoted in this story, was granted anonymity for his candor. “We’re skeptical moving forward when they represent a player.”

Sakai and Wolfe declined comment for this story, while communications officials from Dentsu did not respond to requests for comment.

Sasaki, at his introductory news conference, cited a specific reason for choosing the Dodgers.

”The number one thing that stood out was the stability of the front office,” he said.

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Dentsu, which employs more than 71,000 people worldwide, does not negotiate player contracts. Providing marketing opportunities and other services, though, seems a natural outgrowth for the company, which already counts Yamamoto as its other prominent major-league client. The company also does business with other sports leagues along with marquee global events such as the World Cup and the Olympics.

Dentsu has been described as “hard-wired into nearly every major institution in Japan,” as The New York Times wrote in a 2021 article headlined “The Invisible Hand Behind the Tokyo Olympics.” In baseball terms, it would be the rough equivalent of Scott Boras Corporation also being an advertising agency and owning the television rights to Major League Baseball in the United States. Such a description still might not do justice to Dentsu’s influence in Japan.

“There’s no comparison here. I can’t even give you an analogy,” an MLB official said, searching for a comparable U.S. company. “They’re ubiquitous.”

They were also the driving force in Sasaki’s choice of the Dodgers, in the view of several of the losing bidders. Dodgers officials say they have no relationship with Dentsu beyond their dealings with Sasaki and Yamamoto. Still, multiple rival executives complain the outcome of the Sasaki sweepstakes was “predetermined” – and guided, perhaps for financial reasons, by Sakai and Dentsu.

The Dodgers long were perceived as the favorites to land Sasaki. They began scouting the Japanese phenom six years ago when he was a senior in high school, building a foundation many other clubs did not have. The sense within the sport that the Dodgers would sign him was so pervasive, Major League Baseball conducted an investigation before Sasaki was posted by his Japanese team, the Chiba Lotte Marines. It found no evidence of wrongdoing.

The league included Sasaki in the international amateur player pool because he was not yet 25. He signed a minor-league contract with the Dodgers for a relative pittance by major-league standards, $6.5 million. The two other finalists, the San Diego Padres and Toronto Blue Jays, were prepared to offer more.

But Sasaki chose to join a team that already featured Yamamoto and three-time MVP Shohei Ohtani, the biggest Japanese star of all. (Ohtani is not affiliated with Dentsu; he formed his own management company at the start of his career.)

Some of the losing bidders, upon learning of their eliminations, took umbrage. One club asked for Sasaki to delete the information it presented to him on an iPad, then return the tablet. Sasaki did, according to a source briefed on the process. Another team created a link for its presentation, and canceled the URL upon learning it was out.

Even if the Dodgers had a preexisting agreement with Sasaki — and they insist they did not — such a deal would not be unusual for the international amateur market. Signings out of Asia, for both amateurs and professionals, are generally considered more above-board than those in Latin America. Rival executives do not say the Sasaki process was corrupt. The better word to describe it, in their view, would be curious.

“It was hard to get a sense of who was controlling everything . . . of what they actually were valuing,” one executive said.

Sakai’s role in the process seemed to grow. This stood in contrast to the previous offseason, when he took a backseat in the Yamamoto negotiations. Yamamoto was an unrestricted free agent, so his talks revolved largely around money. Wolfe did the negotiating, and Yamamoto landed the biggest contract ever for a player who is exclusively a pitcher, $325 million over 12 years, choosing the Dodgers over the New York Yankees, New York Mets and other clubs with deep pockets.

Sasaki, affordable to all 30 teams, prompted even more of a frenzy. Teams worked furiously to fulfill his only request, an explanation for his diminished velocity last season.

They viewed him as the equivalent of a No. 1 overall draft pick, like the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Paul Skenes in 2023.

Sasaki, though, signed for $2.7 million less than Skenes. Teams are almost desperate for that kind of value, particularly when it is accompanied by six years of club control. No matter where Sasaki landed, the losers were bound to be upset. But how much of their indignation stems from their sense that Dentsu created an uneven playing field, and how much of it is simply Dodger Envy?

The problem for anyone critical of Sasaki’s process, even some of the losing bidders acknowledge, is that the Dodgers were his most logical pick all along.

“Where is he going to get the most exposure in Japan? The Dodgers. Where is he going to have the most marketing opportunity? The Dodgers. What’s the best environment for a Japanese player in MLB? The Dodgers,” said one executive from a losing bidder. “It’s really hard to argue that they shouldn’t get the player.”

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Wolfe, in representing Sasaki and Yamamoto, needed to accept working with Sakai and Dentsu. How Sakai first connected with the two pitchers is not known. Dentsu’s thinking also is not entirely clear. Marketing opportunities might have been one driver. A desire to put its client in the same orbit as Ohtani, who has achieved legendary status in Japan, might have been another motivator.

Commissions from player contracts alone provide only so much incentive. The U.S. representative of an international player typically splits the fee with the manager or management company from the player’s native land. An even split of the standard 5 percent commission on Yamamoto’s $325 million contract would amount to $8.125 million — a sum that, for a multi-billion dollar corporation such as Dentsu, amounts to small change.

Dentsu, however, might simply want to sign players who would be stars of its MLB broadcasts. The company is the league’s longest-running international media partner. Its partnership with the league dates to 1990, and its current agreement runs through 2028, according to a source briefed on the details. The deal expires at the same time as MLB’s contracts with its leading domestic TV rightsholders.

The closest comparison to Dentsu in the U.S. is probably Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which represents players and maintains a division that negotiates media rights. CAA, however, does not hold national TV rights to baseball.

For the Tokyo Series, Dentsu is operating in its usual manner, sublicensing its TV rights to Japanese networks while also working with companies on advertising and sponsorship deals. Guggenheim, the global investment company that owns the Dodgers, is the main sponsor for the event.

While Dentsu’s partnership with MLB and representation of players in MLB might give the appearance of a conflict, sources from both the league and the Players Association said they do not view the company’s activities as problematic.

Dentsu, however, has run into other trouble in recent years.

In January, a Tokyo court fined the company around $1.94 million for bid-rigging in advance of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. A former Dentsu executive was sentenced to two years in jail, suspended for four years. Two other Japanese companies were convicted for similar offenses and five others face indictments.

Dentsu’s financial outlook is less than robust. The company in November projected flat revenues in 2025 as it continues restructuring. And its desire to increase its representation of Japanese baseball players is not entirely welcome. A recent article in the Japanese newspaper Nikkan Gendai quoted an unnamed player as saying the Orix Buffaloes was trying to prevent contact between Dentsu and pitcher Shunpeita Yamashita, 21, whose potential gives him the chance to be the next Sasaki.

Sure, Roki Sasaki is cool, but can I interest you in Shunpeita Yamashita?

Averaged 96 mph with his fastball last season, 20″ iVB with 10″ arm-side (NPB ball). 6.6′ extension 6.1′ release.

Curveball spin up to 2900, 87-88 mph split.

Aesthetically pleasing power delivery >>> pic.twitter.com/i0L4D1ZMiP

— Lance Brozdowski (@LanceBroz) November 18, 2024

Orix is Yamamoto’s former Japanese club. If Yamashita waits until after his age 25 season to become an unrestricted free agent, the release fee the team receives might rise considerably. From that perspective, it makes sense for Orix to resist any push, by Dentsu or any other party, to get Yamashita to the majors sooner.

For Yamamoto, the Dodgers paid Orix $50.6 million.

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Sakai took an unusual approach during the recruiting process for Yamamoto, at each meeting donning a cap of the team the pitcher was visiting. Word circulated among the major-league executives involved in the bidding. Sakai wore a Mets cap to the Mets visit, a Yankees cap for the Yankees meeting, aiming to please each team.

“Hokey,” one executive said.

Sakai did not reprise his cap-changing routine for the Sasaki negotiations. Instead, he tried to connect to executives, one of whom described him as, “charming, gracious, a nice guy.” In the perception of some, however, he was aggressively directing things behind the scenes.

The system for players to find representation in Japan is different than it is for players in the U.S. Many Japanese players hire lawyers to negotiate their contracts, according to one source briefed on the process. Personal managers like Sakai and management companies like Dentsu handle marketing, endorsements and personal services. And, when a player wants to come to the majors, they often help him choose an agent.

Unlike most Japanese personal managers, who generally stay in the background, Sakai was a frequent presence at Dodgers camp this spring, visible at workouts. Shortly after arriving in Japan, Sakai arranged for Dodgers manager Dave Roberts to enjoy a sushi dinner at an exclusive Tokyo restaurant.

Natural as the relationship looks now, the teams recruiting Sasaki were told throughout the process that his signing with the Dodgers was not assured.

Sasaki’s 45-day posting period opened Dec. 11, during the winter meetings, and lasted until Jan. 23. Wolfe said that because Sasaki grew up in the spotlight in Japan, a small-market team might be “more beneficial for him as a soft landing spot.”

The Padres, playing in the league’s fourth smallest U.S. television market, fit the description. They had Darvish to mentor to Sasaki. And, with three playoff appearances in the past five years, they could boast of recent success.

For those reasons, few would have viewed the Padres as a surprising choice for Sasaki, even with the instability of their current ownership. The inclusion of the Blue Jays among the finalists, on the other hand, infuriated some of the other bidders.

Wolfe said at the winter meetings that Sasaki wanted to join a team that had success on the field and a history of developing pitchers. The Jays, who have not won a postseason game since 2016, did not meet those criteria as well as other clubs. Yet Sasaki spent multiple days in Toronto meeting with Jays officials. Some executives believe his interest was driven by the desire of Dentsu to reap the rewards of making him potentially the biggest baseball star in Canada.

“There is no way in your right mind you would consider Toronto unless it’s solely about the marketing arm,” one executive said.

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The Dodgers’ signing of Yamamoto gave them a full year to demonstrate to Sakai and Dentsu how they would handle a top pitcher. So, even before Sasaki was posted, Sakai and Dentsu had more insight into the Dodgers than any other club. And, while marketing might have played into Sasaki’s decision, an argument can be made that Dentsu, at least for television purposes, might have derived a greater benefit from him going elsewhere.

Japanese fans already watch the Dodgers because of Ohtani and Yamamoto. Sasaki, by choosing another club, particularly one on the East Coast, could have enhanced other viewing opportunities. During the 2000s, Hideki Matsui’s Yankees often played in an early time slot and Ichiro’s Seattle Mariners in a late one, generating more eyeballs over a longer period of time — and creating greater value.

The Dodgers, though, are the team of the moment in Major League Baseball, and Sasaki is hardly the only free agent to join their budding dynasty in the past two offseasons.

“I don’t think you can call it an Evil Empire when everyone wants to be here,” third baseman Max Muncy said.

Even if Sasaki had joined a small-market club, the media attention on him would have been considerable. With the Dodgers, he is one of many players in the limelight. In a sense, he gets the best of both worlds — a measure of cover, plus the chance to play for a team that and if has made 12 straight postseason appearances and won two of the past five World Series.

Still, hard feelings linger.

“Honestly,” one executive said of the process, “it felt like kind of a waste of time.”

For the losing bidders, the enduring question is whether the entire saga was necessary, considering that it ended precisely the way nearly everyone predicted.

But if Dentsu continues to emerge as a major player in the sport, teams moving forward will have little choice but to figure out how to deal with the influential Japanese company.

— The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya, Evan Drellich, Dennis Lin and Patrick Mooney contributed to this story

(Top photo of Roki Sasaki at his introductory Dodgers press conference: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)