Tampa Bay signed Shane Sasaki out of high school in Hawaii in 2019. He spent the early years of his minor league career in the Rays organization, but was traded to the Miami Marlins at the end of spring training in 2024 in a three-team deal that also included current Reds 3rd string catcher Ben Rortvedt (among several other players). Sasaki spent both the 2024 and 2025 seasons in the Marlins farm system, playing primarily in Double-A and Triple-A, although he had brief rehab stints at lower levels.
The 25-year-old certainly excels in one area of his game above the rest. He has been an incredibly effective base stealer in his career. Sasaki has never played 100 games in a given season and has only 374 games under his belt in the minor leagues. But despite playing a limited number of games in his six-season career, he went 140-for-157 in stolen base attempts. This past year, he went 30-for-33 between Double-A Pensacola and Triple-A Jacksonville.
In Triple-A they have Statcast data and with numbers like he’s showing in the stolen base category, his sprint speed numbers put him exactly where you’d expect: high on the list. His fastest sprint speed was 30.6 feet per second and he topped 30.0 16 times in just 23 games. A player with an average speed of 30.0 feet per second is considered to have elite-level MLB speed. The sample size is too small to know if that’s really the average, but if it’s not, it should be close. That speed also offers value in the outfield, where he boasts above-average range in center.
However, there is a reason why he was a free agent after his 24th season. He has struggled to score in the upper minor leagues. After posting a .904 OPS in Single-A and an .840 OPS in High-A, his OPS dropped to .629 in 139 games at the Double-A level. In his 23 games in Triple-A, his OPS was .558. In 2025, he hit one home run in 350 at-bats between Double-A and Triple-A and had just 14 doubles to go along with two triples. You can view his career stats here.
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