Other free agent pitchers will get much bigger contracts this offseason, but none come with the intrigue of Japanese right-hander Roki Sasaki.
The 23-year-old was posted last week and is expected to sign during the early part of next year’s international free agent period, since he was posted Dec. 9 and has to finalize a deal by the end of the 45-day window, which is Jan. 23.
With in-person meetings expected to begin with prospective teams as soon as this week, there remains considerable uncertainty regarding where Sasaki will end up.
Throughout his lead-up to free agency, the Dodgers were considered the most likely landing spot.
More recently — and since his agent Joel Wolfe’s comments last week at the Winter Meetings, in which he said “I think there’s an argument to be made that a small- or midmarket team might be more beneficial for him as a soft landing coming from Japan” — that thinking has changed.
The Padres are now seen as a real threat for Sasaki, but that hasn’t stopped the Yankees, Mets — and of course, the Dodgers — from making their pitch for a player who figures to be on a path similar to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who signed a $325 million deal with the Dodgers last offseason.
Because he’s only 23, Sasaki is limited to signing a contract that does not exceed a team’s MLB-allotted bonus pool, which currently tops out at around $7.5 million.
All of those factors have left observers believing the Yankees, as well as the Mets, could be underdogs when it comes to landing Sasaki.
But other executives say it’s all a guessing game until they have face-to-face meetings with Sasaki, who, as Wolfe noted, has dealt with shoulder injuries, as well as a strained oblique, in the past.
Still, Yankees GM Brian Cashman said last week Sasaki’s “intent is to be one of the game’s greatest pitchers on the planet, and we certainly would love to participate in allowing that to happen.”
They could sell Sasaki on their history with Masahiro Tanaka and Hideki Matsui.
Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns, who has Kodai Senga in the rotation, added the Mets would “give it our best shot. It’s very difficult in these processes to truly understand what a player’s preference is.”
And the other behemoth lurking is the Dodgers, with Shohei Ohtani and Yamamoto already on their roster.
Andrew Friedman, Los Angeles president of baseball operations, added last week that Sasaki was “a major priority” for the reigning World Series champions.
“This isn’t something you can practice for,” another executive said. “You just have to hope for the best.”
