By Jamie Barton, CNN

(CNN) — What do you buy for the team that has everything? That is the question that the Los Angeles Dodgers have been wrestling with this winter.

The answer, it appears, is Roki Sasaki, the 23-year-old star who has torn it up in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and is now making the journey across the Pacific.

The Dodgers, already World Series champions and home to one of the greatest players of all time in Shohei Ohtani, have now secured arguably the most promising prospect in all of baseball.

“I spent the past month both embracing and reflecting on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to choose a place purely based on where I can grow as a player the most,” said Sasaki through an interpreter.

“Every organization helped me in its own way, and it was an incredibly difficult decision to choose just one. I am fully aware that there are many different opinions out there. But now that I have decided to come here, I want to move forward with the belief that the decision I made is the best one, trust in those who believed in my potential and (have) conviction in the goals that I set for myself.”

Who is Roki Sasaki?

Despite only turning 23 in November, the six-foot-two right-hander is already one of the best pitchers in the world.

2024 saw him go 10-5 with an ERA of 2.35 across 18 games, striking out 129 batters in 111 innings along the way.

Sasaki’s career stats make for even better reading, with the so-called “Monster of the Reiwa Era” recording an ERA of just 2.02, picking up 524 strikeouts in 414 2/3 innings.

Having broken Ohtani’s record for the fastest pitch thrown by a Japanese high school player (101 mph), Sasaki has been known to MLB executives for some time.

He first began turning the heads of American fans in April 2022 when he pitched a perfect game against the Orix Buffaloes. It was the 16th perfect game in NPB history and the first in 28 years, but even more impressive was the manner in which Sasaki went about it – 13 straight strikeouts between the first and fifth innings, a new world record to top the 10 consecutive Ks achieved by Corbin Burnes, Tom Seaver and Aaron Nola in MLB. His 19 strikeouts in total also matched the all-time NPB record.

Clearly not one for resting on his laurels, the then-20-year-old went out and threw another eight perfect innings in his very next start, amassing another 14 Ks and striking out the side in the eighth inning before being taken out by his manager.

Sasaki fever truly reached the US the following year when he was part of Samurai Japan’s 2023 World Baseball Classic win, alongside Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, now his Dodgers teammates. Sasaki continued his impressive strikeout record, punching out 11 over 7 2/3 innings.

The right-hander has relied on remarkable velocity, his fastball clocking in at a peak of 102.5 mph. Combined with a vicious splitter, which is one of the best in the world right now, Sasaki has proved unstoppable at times.

“His split-finger fastball is just absolutely devastating. It flummoxes batters,” Jason Coskrey, Japanese baseball writer for The Japan Times, told CNN Sport.

“He’s got the goods, he’s big. He’s pretty wiry, he doesn’t have a lot of muscle on him, but he’s got good height, he’s got amazing power with his pitches, and he’s a phenomenal talent.”

Sasaki’s former manager and teammates are very much in agreement.

“When I saw him pitch for the first time in the bullpen at the Ishigaki Island camp in 2020, it was a shock (I haven’t experienced) since I first saw Hideo Nomo,” said coach Masato Yoshii in a statement in November.

“It’s well known his talent is pretty much unmatched,” former White Sox draftee James Dykstra, who pitched alongside Sasaki with the Marines last year, told MLB.com. “I came back from watching that bullpen and said, ‘This is probably one of the greatest pitchers I’ve ever seen live.’

“Every time he pitched was more and more impressive. I can’t think of a single person that has this much raw talent.”

Why was his free agency different from others?

His outstanding velocity at such a young age has inevitably drawn comparisons with Ohtani, but the similarities do not end there.

When Ohtani signed for the Los Angeles Angels in 2017, he was given a $2.315 million signing bonus, a fraction of what he was worth due to his age. Foreign-born players are subject to international bonus pool money restrictions, limiting what they can earn.

Sasaki’s $6.5 million bonus is more than twice what Ohtani received, but still far less than what he would have received were he 25 or older. By contrast, Yamamoto’s deal with the Dodgers last year was worth $325 million, as he was 25.

“He’d get a crazy contract, but the rules are the rules,” explained Coskrey. “Sasaki, he probably projects to have a higher ceiling than Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and getting him so young, I think he would get something like that (salary) too.”

It is a mark of how much Sasaki wants to get started in the US that he is choosing to bet on himself rather than wait two years for what would likely be a huge contract.

“I can only express my gratitude to the team, who have always listened to me about my future plans to challenge the MLB since I joined the team, and have now officially allowed my posting,” he said in a statement in November.

“I will do my best to become the best player in the world who has come up from a minor league contract so that I will have no regrets in my one-time baseball career and live up to the expectations of everyone who has supported me.”

What does Sasaki’s arrival mean for the Dodgers?

The feeling among Dodgers officials is that Sasaki can become the best pitcher in the world.

“His goal is to be the first Japanese pitcher to win a Cy Young, and he definitely possesses the ability to do that,” said Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman.

With the team expected to use a six-man rotation next season, Sasaki will slot in alongside Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and fellow new arrival Blake Snell. Two of Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and Landon Knack will likely join them. It is unlikely that two-way star Ohtani will be pitching come the season opener in March.

With Ohtani, Yamamoto and now Sasaki, the Dodgers have three Japanese-born players in their squad for the first time in franchise history. Sasaki will be the 13th Japanese-born player to wear Dodger blue, joining the likes of Hideo Nomo, Kenta Maeda and current head coach Dave Roberts. Only the New York Mets have had more Japanese players, with 14.

With Sasaki’s arrival, we are already seeing another effect for the Dodgers: accusations from around MLB of a handshake deal.

“Give anybody truth serum,” one team executive said according to The Athletic. “That’s all I’ve heard anyone talk about — the Dodgers had him signed a long time ago.”

Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, has repeatedly denied any such suggestions.

“I’ve tried to be an open book and as transparent as possible with all the teams in the league,” said Wolfe. “I answer every phone call, I answer every question. This goes back to before the process even started. Every team I think would tell you that I told each one of them where they stood throughout the entire process, why they got a meeting, why they didn’t get a meeting, why other teams got a meeting. I tried to do my best to do that. He was only going to be able to pick one.

“I know a lot of teams have said a lot of things about this. But I know, I believe this was a fair and level process.”

Whether the Dodgers are making baseball more boring or predictable – as has been suggested, with their ability to sign almost anyone they want – is a question for another day. What is clear is that, whether you like it or not, you will soon be seeing a lot more of Roki Sasaki.

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CNN’s Yumi Asada contributed reporting.