Neither Shohei Ohtani nor Yoshinobu Yamamoto had been a part of the Dodgers’ preliminary in-person pitch to Japanese pitching star Roki Sasaki, a gathering that came about on the Westwood workplaces of the Wasserman Media Group earlier than the vacations, in accordance with individuals with information of the state of affairs not approved to talk publicly about it.
The explanation for his or her absence? They weren’t invited.
“One of the criteria for the meetings is that Roki asked that no players were to attend,” Joel Wolfe, the agent representing the 23-year-old right-hander, mentioned in a 20-minute video name with reporters to replace Sasaki negotiations on Monday.
“There were a couple of teams that had a video from one or two players, but for the most part, it was the general manager, possibly an assistant GM, the manager, the pitching coach and people from the bio-mechanics performance and training staff.”
Wolfe wouldn’t say what number of groups met with Sasaki in current weeks, however 5 different golf equipment — the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants — are publicly recognized to have met with him, and the San Diego Padres are seen as main contenders for his companies.
Conferences had been restricted to 2 hours in size and held at Wolfe’s workplace. There have been no stadium visits or journeys to different cities.
“I think he did that to preserve the integrity of the meeting process,” Wolfe mentioned. “And I think the teams he met would tell you that he was engaged, he asked questions.”
Wolfe mentioned Sasaki has returned to Japan to “meet with his family and his team of people to decide what the next steps are … possibly meeting with one or two additional teams or narrowing the field, which I think may be more likely.”
Sasaki, Wolfe mentioned, may also “visit one or two cities as he tries to finalize his decision,” which can probably be made within the week after the 2025 worldwide signing interval opens on Jan. 15.
Whereas Monday’s name was quick on particulars, it did shed some mild on the recruiting course of and supply some perception into the pitcher.
After Sasaki was posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines on Dec. 9, Wolfe despatched a letter to all 30 groups asking to ship “any type of information that they wanted Roki to review.”
Twenty groups responded, many with glitzy displays.
“The level of preparation, the videos … it was like the Roki film festival,” Wolfe mentioned. “There were in-depth power-point presentations, short films, some teams made actual books. People clearly spent hundreds of hours researching Roki and his personal and professional background, and I can’t say how much he and his family appreciated it.”
Joel Wolfe, agent for Japanese participant Roki Sasaki, speaks to reporters on the MLB winter conferences on Dec. 10.
(Tony Gutierrez / Related Press)
Sasaski additionally gave every crew he met with a “homework assignment,” Wolfe mentioned, “an opportunity for the teams to really show what they specialize in.”
The Dodgers, who beat the New York Yankees in a five-game World Collection in October, have lengthy been seen as favorites to land Sasaki, but when Sasaki leads to Los Angeles, it gained’t essentially be due to the presence of Ohtani and Yamamoto, who had been teammates of Sasaki on Japan’s World Baseball Traditional-winning crew in 2023.
“We’ve had numerous conversations about team location, market size, teams’ success … but he doesn’t seem overly concerned about whether a team has Japanese players or not,” Wolfe mentioned. “In the past, as I’ve represented Japanese players, that was sometimes an issue, but it was never a topic of discussion.”
The wiry 6-foot-4, 203-pound Sasaki went 30-15 with a 2.02 ERA in 69 video games over 4 seasons in Japan, placing out 524 and strolling 91 in 414 ⅔ innings. He went 10-5 with a 2.35 ERA in 18 video games in 2024, with 129 strikeouts and 32 walks in 111 innings.
The spotlight of Sasaki’s profession was an ideal recreation towards the Orix Buffaloes on April 10, 2022, a recreation through which he tied a Nippon Skilled Baseball file with 19 strikeouts and set an NPB file with 13 consecutive strikeouts.
Sasaki’s stuff is electrical. He can generate loads of swing-and-miss with a vigorous fastball that sits within the 98-mph vary and has touched 102 mph, and he enhances his heater with a sharp-breaking split-fingered fastball that he throws between 88-93 mph, an 87-91-mph slider and an occasional 78-81-mph sluggish curve.
Roki Sasaki pitches through the 2023 World Baseball Traditional.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Related Press)
However what makes Sasaki much more coveted is he’s a possible ace who could be acquired at minimal price.
As a result of he’s not but 25, Sasaki will probably be restricted to a minor league contract with a modest signing bonus, just like when Ohtani, then 23, signed with the Angels for $2.315 million and made $545,000 (2018), $650,000 (2019) and $700,000 (2020) in his first three seasons.
Had he waited two extra years to depart Japan, Sasaki — like Yamamoto, who signed a 12-year, $325-million contract with the Dodgers final winter — would have positioned himself for an enormous nine-figure deal.
“Roki is by no means a finished product — he knows it, and the teams know it,” Wolfe mentioned. “He’s incredibly talented. We all know that. But he is a guy who wants to be great. He’s not coming here just to be rich or to get a huge contract. He wants to be one of the greatest ever. And to be that, he knows he has to challenge himself.
“I think with his experience at the WBC, being around [San Diego pitcher Yu] Darvish and Ohtani, and then seeing [Cubs left-hander Shota] Imanaga come over and dominate at such a level in the first half, he realized that in order to take it to the next level, he had to come here, play against the best players in the world every day and tap into all the resources major league teams have to help him become one of the best pitchers ever, not just to come out of NPB, but in all of Major League Baseball.”
Sasaki would bolster an already deep Dodgers rotation that’s presently headed by right-handers Tyler Glasnow and Yamamoto and left-hander Blake Snell, the two-time Cy Younger Award winner who signed a five-year, $182-million deal in late November.
Ohtani, the two-way star and 2024 Nationwide League most dear participant who was relegated to designated hitter whereas recovering from one other elbow surgical procedure this previous season, is predicted to return to the mound early in 2025.
Proper-handers Dustin Might and Tony Gonsolin are additionally anticipated to return from elbow surgical procedures this season, and three-time Cy Younger Award winner Clayton Kershaw is predicted to re-sign. Younger right-handers Landon Knack and Bobby Miller will present depth.
“He’s someone who is obviously a major priority for us,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman mentioned on the winter conferences in early December. “We’re going to do whatever we can, and know that there are a lot of other teams that are going to do the exact same thing.”
