Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki has informed the Texas Rangers that he will not be signing with him when his signing window opens on January 15th.

Sasaki met with the Rangers earlier this winter making Texas one of the few teams he met with before he makes his selection next week.

Back in December, Chris Young and the Rangers made a presentation to Sasaki in Los Angeles before he returned to Japan and eventually decided to cut Texas from the runnings.

The Rangers have long been interested in bringing Sasaki to Arlington as they have been scouting him in Japan for years with Chris Young making a trip to watch him pitch back in September.

In 414 and 2/3 career NBP innings, Sasaki has an impressive 2.02 lifetime ERA with 524 strikeouts and 91 walks.

Coming over as an international free agent certainly opened the door for the Rangers to go after Sasaki.

However, Texas will not have to allocate its funds elsewhere when the international signing period opens later this week.

Earlier in the winter, Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young said that Texas was likely done shopping in the starting pitching market outside of Sasaki.

Meaning that the Rangers’ current group of starters is likely what they will go into the 2025 season with.

As things stand now, Texas will feature a strong bunch with Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi at the top, and some form of Tyler Mahle, Cody Bradford, Jon Gray, and Kumar Rocker rounding out the rest.