Many baseball insiders wondered why Roki Sasaki chose this offseason to make the leap from Japan to Major League Baseball. The newest starter for the Los Angel

The Los Angeles Dodgers have Roki Sasaki, but a new Japanese player named Munetaka Murakami is now getting attention.

Sasaki's nickname is a tribute to legendary Japanese starting pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, who was known as the "Monster of the Heisei," referring to different eras of the Japanese calendar. The 23-year-old lost both his father and grandfather during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.