Los Angeles Dodgers flamethrower Roki Sasaki isn’t afraid of a profound role change. Sasaki pulled off an unthinkable transformation in 2025, re-sculpting his identity into an electric closer after spending almost the entire season as a frustrated starter. It wouldn’t surprise anyone to see LA keep Sasaki in the closer role heading into his sophomore MLB season, but the Dodgers reportedly aren’t going to do that.

To begin 2026, Sasaki will re-claim his original role as a starting pitcher, according to a new report from MLB.com’s Brian Murphy, who cited comments made to The Orange County Register by both Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman regarding Sasaki.

Roki Sasaki will be a starting pitcher — not a closer — in 2026, according to Dodgers executives Brandon Gomes and Andrew Friedman

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Roki Sasaki’s first three MLB pitches. pic.twitter.com/qLxqVkQrpU

— MLB (@MLB) March 19, 2025

“Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said recently that Sasaki will ‘absolutely’ be in the team’s starting rotation next season, and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman concurred,” Murphy reported, while also featuring a comment from Friedman.

“We’re definitely viewing him as a starter and a really good one, and we’ll continue to work this offseason and put him in the best position to be ready in Spring Training to help us win again,” Friedman told the Register, per Murphy.

With the Sasaki news loud and clear, the question now becomes where he will fit within the pecking order of LA’s starting rotation that is already oozing with a ton of talent. The four Dodgers starters from the 2025 World Series are all returning, and at least three of them expect to be week-to-week fixtures in the 2026 rotation. World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Blake Snell will presumably continue to headline the top of LA’s rotation, with Shohei Ohtani and Tyler Glasnow coming in behind at the third and fourth spots.

At first glance, this appears to make Sasaki’s fit within the puzzle a simple and thoughtless decision: slide him in at No. 5! But the landscape is more complicated than that for Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. For one, Ohtani’s pitching workload is always unpredictable, as far as an entire season is concerned. Ohtani didn’t make a start in 2025 until June 16, and this was after a 2024 season in which he didn’t pitch at all while recovering from elbow surgery.

Even though Ohtani is superhuman, it feels unlikely that he’ll be in the Dodgers’ rotation from Opening Day until the end of the season, even if that’s just a result of Roberts managing his two-way workload at times to keep Shohei fresh for September and October.

Roberts knows that he has three our four extra starting pitchers on the roster, which leads us to the other talking point about Sasaki’s place in all of this. The Dodgers may very well opt for a six-man rotation for much of 2026, with the capacity to flex that number down to five when Ohtani or one of LA’s other top four starters need rest or get injured.

Gavin Stone, River Ryan, and Emmet Sheehan are all in the mix right behind Sasaki as potential fifth (or sixth) starters for the Dodgers when the season commences in late March.

This is the most up-to-date layout of the Dodgers’ rotation in 2026: four studs returning to their rightful spots, and four ultra-talented arms in the mix for one or two spots. If the season started tomorrow, it would be hard to find a deeper and more talented starting rotation in MLB. And we haven’t even seen whether or not the Dodgers are going to add another impact starter this offseason.