PHILADELPHIA -- Halfway across the world, Roki Sasaki had a secret admirer. In 2021, his first season in Nippon Professional Baseball, the Chiba Lotte Marines' teenaged phenom regularly blew triple-digit fastballs by hitters and complemented them with a split-fingered fastball that behaved like a high-velocity knuckleball. Once a week, new videos of Sasaki's latest start would find their way onto social media, and when they did, Rob Hill would consume them with equal parts appreciation and awe.

"I keep a mental tab of a lot of pitchers that I like," said Hill, the Dodgers' 30-year-old director of pitching, "and I'll go back and look how they're doing and see how their bodies are moving and playing, like almost a game of: If they were with me, what would I do?"

On Sept. 4 this year, Hil

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