What should the Dodgers do with Roki Sasaki?

Roki Sasaki might not be good. This version of him certainly isn’t.

The mercurial Dodgers hurler made his third start of the year on Sunday against the Texas Rangers. It went poorly. Sasaki walked five and allowed five hits across four innings. Somehow, he avoided a full-blown disaster, surrendering only two earned runs. His six strikeouts were a career high, but nobody was popping champagne for that accomplishment after the game.

Sasaki’s regular-season ERA is now 6.23 (that’s nine earned runs in 13 innings), a relative improvement compared to the atmospheric 15.88 ERA he recorded across four spring training outings. His 15.9% walk rate is the ninth-worst mark among the 128 MLB pitchers who have made at least three starts.

Most of Sasaki’s underlying numbers are similarly unkind. The 24-year-old is getting behind in counts, he is serving up homers, he is walking the farm, he is not working deep into games. There are occasional rays of sunshine, signs of life, glimpses of the monster that once was, but in the main, Sasaki’s sophomore season has gotten off to a very rocky start.

“I do feel that the growth part of it is to, you know, hang in there,” Dave Roberts told assembled reporters after the game Sunday. “Make pitches when he needs to. That's important.”

Important for Sasaki, yes. Important for the Dodgers? That’s a different story.

At this point, Los Angeles’ stacked roster is the only thing enabling Sasaki’s presence on the big-league club. Most other teams — teams not all but guaranteed a playoff spot — would probably send the underbaked flamethrower to Triple-A to develop his game in a more relaxed setting.

The Dodgers, however, are not like other organizations.

They can afford to conduct this science experiment at the major-league level because their roster can, has and will overcome any Sasaki-related road bumps. Los Angeles is currently 1-2 when he starts, but the team boasts MLB’s best record and second-best run differential. As long as Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Co. are humming on the mound, the Dodgers can send Sasaki — or me or you — out there every sixth day. They’ll make the playoffs either way. And sometimes, as they did in Sasaki’s start last week against the Nationals, they’ll bash their way to a victory.

But how did things get so ugly for this particular pitcher? How did Sasaki go from can’t-miss import to can’t-hit-the-strike-zone? Did the industry mess up the scouting? Or did the player meaningfully change?

Well, Sasaki’s four-seam fastball velocity is back up compared to last year, an encouraging sign. Yet the pitch is still getting blasted to the tune of a .714 slugging percentage. Advanced metrics have it pegged as one of the worst heaters in the sport. That’s partially due to suboptimal shape (the way Sasaki’s fastball moves as it zips to the plate) and partially due to suboptimal command (he’s rarely pinpointing it on the edges). Usually, the pitch ends up either in a hitter’s happy zone or nowhere near it.

Sasaki’s splitter remains a wonderfully aesthetic offering, the closest thing the big leagues have right now to a knuckleball. The thing floats, dips and dives every which way. When located well, it’s a great pitch. But big-league hitters are smart, and they often track the pitch out of Sasaki’s hand all the way to the dirt in front of their feet. Not many pitches in baseball this year have been swung at less often.

It’s worth emphasizing just how dominant Sasaki was during his four-season run in NPB, Japan’s top league. From ages 19 to 22, the string-bean hurler rocked a 2.10 ERA across 394 2/3 innings with 505 strikeouts. He was, for long stretches, borderline untouchable. Accordingly, Sasaki wowed with Samurai Japan during the 2023 WBC, sitting in the upper-90s with his heater and ripping off a knee-quivering splitter.

Does that pitcher still exist? It’s hard to say.

What’s more, those memories present the Dodgers with a difficult developmental decision. Should they be trying to get Sasaki back to what he was? Or should they be focused on getting the most out of what Sasaki is now?

Right now, from the outside, it seems they’re caught in between.

Thankfully, the stakes are pretty low, at least for the club. If Sasaki figures it out before Blake Snell gets off the injured list sometime in late May, that’s great. If he doesn’t, that’s fine, too. At that point, the Dodgers can either send him to Triple-A or put him in the bullpen. Or maybe some other arm experiences an injury, and Sasaki sticks around. In the short term, it doesn’t really matter.

There’s an element of rubbernecking to it all, folks tuning in to see if the overwhelmed youngster will crumble in front of 50,000. What's certain, though, is that Sasaki has become the most fascinating part of a fabulous but otherwise familiar Dodgers team.

His next start will come Sunday against the Colorado Rockies at the launching pad that is Coors Field. Hopefully, Sasaki will throw some strikes.