Dave Roberts might've just revealed tough Dodgers path forward for Roki Sasaki

Dave Roberts didn’t say it bluntly. He didn’t have to.

When the Los Angeles Dodgers’ manager stood in front of reporters and calmly explained that Roki Sasaki “needs to develop a third pitch,” he wasn’t just talking about mechanics. He was sketching the most difficult road in baseball: the one where a prodigy has to admit that raw greatness is no longer enough.

For most of this roster, the Dodgers know what they have. Shohei Ohtani is the sport’s gravitational center. Mookie Betts remains a marvel even as age creeps into the conversation. Freddie Freeman’s swing is engineered to age gracefully. There is variance, sure—but not mystery.

Sasaki is different. He arrives at camp in February as an unknown variable in a system built on certainty. The Dodgers have invested far more than money in him, effectively burning two international classes to land a 24-year-old who once bent Japan’s domestic league with little more than a 100-mph fastball and a forkball that fell off tables.

That formula works when hitters see you once. It does not work when they see you three times.

Roberts’ comments revealed the hard truth: if Sasaki is going to be a starter in Major League Baseball, he must become something he has never had to be before—a pitcher willing to be unfinished.

Roki Sasaki faces a major challenge entering his second Dodgers spring training

The irony is cruel. Sasaki’s identity has been built on dominance. In Japan, he didn’t need a third pitch. In October, he didn’t need one either, mowing through postseason innings as a closer with pure velocity and bravado. Three saves. A 0.84 ERA. The myth was restored.

But relief stardom is a shortcut. Starting is a journey.

A two-pitch mix can survive in bursts. It rarely survives in arcs. Big league lineups are too disciplined, too prepared, too merciless. They remember. They adjust. They wait. And without something that “goes left,” as Roberts put it — a slider, a curveball, a wrinkle — Sasaki’s brilliance becomes predictable. That’s why Roberts’ challenge is as psychological as it is technical.

Sasaki is famously independent. When the Dodgers credited their staff for restoring his fastball last season, he countered by saying he fixed it himself by studying old video. It wasn’t arrogance. It was identity. He has always trusted his own eye.

Now, the Dodgers need him to trust something else. They need him to be vulnerable.

Roberts is threading a needle. He wants Sasaki to stay dangerous, to keep the edge that let him stare down hitters in October. But he also wants him to accept that greatness in this league is additive. That evolution is not weakness. That needing help is not failure.

The “tough path forward” isn’t adding a pitch. It’s accepting that the game is bigger than the version of yourself that got you here. Sasaki has already conquered one baseball world. To conquer this one, he must let it change him.