Dodgers Meet With Roki Sasaki

Reports regarding a number of clubs meeting with right-hander Roki Sasaki have trickled out in recent weeks, with the Mets, Yankees, Cubs, Giants, and Rangers all reportedly having received an in-person meeting with the right-hander as his unusual free agency begins to play out. Those five clubs have now been joined by a sixth, as Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register reports that the Dodgers have had an in-person meeting with the top international player available to teams this winter.

It’s hardly a surprise to hear that the Dodgers have met with the 23-year-old phenom. L.A. and San Diego have been viewed by many as clear favorites to land the right-hander since before it was clear he would be posted this winter and the chatter connecting Sasaki to the Dodgers in particular became loud enough that Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, issued a strong denial of the notion that a “handshake” agreement has already been reached with the club. MLBTR’s Steve Adams and Tim Dierkes were present for later comments by Wolfe regarding Sasaki’s free agency made at the Winter Meetings in Dallas, wherein Wolfe first revealed that a preliminary round of in-person visits at a central location would be taking place shortly after the Winter Meetings had come to a close. At the time, Wolfe noted that Sasaki planned to head back to Japan for a week or two afterwards to celebrate the holidays before returning for additional visits with teams ahead of the end of his posting window next month.

Given that timeline, any meetings that have occurred between Sasaki and teams to this point in the winter are likely to have been preliminary in nature, offering Sasaki an opportunity to become more familiar with the organizations he had at least some level of interest in. The reported group of six clubs to have reached that stage is not necessarily exhaustive, and it’s entirely possible that other clubs met with Sasaki prior to the holidays without the meeting being reported publicly. That could include the Padres, who have long been considered a potential front-runner for Sasaki’s services alongside the Dodgers.

The 23-year-old’s combination of incredible talent and unique circumstances figure to make him perhaps the single most sought-after player available this winter. The righty’s career 2.10 ERA in 394 2/3 NPB innings as a 23-year-old with his prime still ahead of him would surely land him firmly in the conversation for a massive payout in free agency on the heels of Sasaki’s countryman Yoshinobu Yamamoto landing a 12-year, $325MM deal with the Ddogers last winter via the posting system. That sort of financial windfall won’t be available to Sasaki, however, as he is less than 25 years old and is therefore considered an international amateur per the rules of MLB. That means he’ll be signing a minor league contract with a bonus restricted to the signing club’s international bonus pool space, a reality which essentially removes the financial advantages and disadvantages clubs normally contend with in free agency. Shohei Ohtani famously went through the same process when he first jumped to MLB, and in doing so surprised the baseball world by landing with the Angels.

Virtually any team could benefit from adding a pitcher with Sasaki’s talent to their rotation, and the Dodgers are of course no exception. Even after signing Blake Snell to a five-year deal earlier this winter with veteran Clayton Kershaw widely expected to reunite with the club later in the offseason, the Dodgers’ rotation is severely lacking in certainty. Snell, Kershaw, Ohtani, Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Tony Gonsolin, and Dustin May is a formidable group of hurlers who could all generate All-Star caliber performances in 2025, but each has major injury concerns attached to them and cannot be counted on for anything close to 30 starts in a season. Adding Sasaki to the mix would give the club yet another high-quality rotation option to work with, and the on-paper excess of starting pitching options should make it easy for L.A. to manage the right-hander’s innings after he was slowed by shoulder and oblique injuries of his own in recent years while pitching for NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines.