With Corbin Burnes recently coming off the board by joining the Arizona Diamondbacks on a six-year contract, all of the attention has turned to Roki Sasaki in MLB free agency.
The right-hander was officially posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) during the Winter Meetings and must sign with a team within the next three weeks.
While there is currently a freeze on international signings, Sasaki spent most of December meeting with interested teams. The group reportedly includes the Chicago Cubs, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers.
According to Will Sammon of The Athletic, there were no MLB players present for the free agent meetings per Sasaki’s request:
All the initial meetings took place in Los Angeles, at a Wasserman office, and the meetings ran for the same amount of time, which was under two hours. Also, no players attended the meetings. Sasaki put these parameters in place, Wolfe said, to “preserve the integrity of the process.” The participants of the meetings ranged from team’s general managers, assistant general managers, managers, pitching coaches and people from biomechanics and training staffs.
With current players not participating in the Sasaki meetings, that of course means Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto were not part of the Dodgers’ contingent that sat down with the 23-year-old.
Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and more Dodgers players were part of the team hosting Ohtani at Dodger Stadium during his free agency process. Ohtani then joined the Dodgers for one of their meetings with Yamamoto.
Prior to Sasaki taking meetings, Joel Wolfe of Wasserman Media Group sent teams a guideline on what type of information to submit in order to be considered. After his initial round of talks, Sasaki is back in Japan to evaluate his next steps.
It’s possible that Sasaki’s camp will request additional information from teams they have already spoken to or begin paring down the field to determine finalists.
Roki Sasaki expected to sign with West Coast team
While numerous teams have expressed interest in Sasaki, many would be surprised if he doesn’t end up on the West Coast.
The Dodgers are widely considered the favorite to sign Sasaki, with the San Diego Padres another team believed to have strong odds. Sasaki won’t be able to sign until Jan. 15, 2025 at the earliest, but must make a decision by the Jan. 23 deadline.
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