Roki Sasaki

[nate82]

37 minutes ago, markedman5 said:

So after all the jumping through hoops these teams did……

 

It was rather clear it was the Dodgers or Padres early on.  The agent and handlers were just blowing smoke about the information they were leaking out.

[Samurai Bucky]

17 hours ago, nate82 said:

It was rather clear it was the Dodgers or Padres early on.  The agent and handlers were just blowing smoke about the information they were leaking out.

Sasaki's actual quote:

お金を見せてください！

[TURBO]

Love that he is making the damn Dodgers and Padres work for it!

Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reports that the Dodgers and Padres have been reaching out to other teams in an effort to acquire international bonus pool money.

It sounds like both teams are attempting to add to the amount that they are able to offer Roki Sasaki in an effort to influence his decision. It’s unclear if the Blue Jays are doing the same thing, as Feinsand notes that are several teams looking to acquire bonus pool funds, and not just the teams that you would expect. The 23-year-old right-hander has until January 23 to finalize his decision, but with each passing day the parties involved risk losing out on other international free agents that they had agreements with.

 

Source: Mark Feinsand

[TURBO]

Using up money that could instead be spent on Roki Sasaki, the Padres are following through on their commitments to sign top international prospects Carlos Alvarez and Jhoan De La Cruz, according to Francys Romero.

 

Romero has sources telling him the Padres learned Sasaki would be signing elsewhere. It follows that these deals would be getting done if that’s the case. These two signings are set to take up at least $2 million and maybe closer to $3 million of the Padres’ $6.26 million signing pool. It wouldn’t rule out a Sasaki signing, but the reason those deals weren’t finalized on Jan. 15, as so many international signings were, was because the Padres were waiting to learn if they’d be spending most of their signing pool on Sasaki.

 

Source: Francys Romero

[TURBO]

Welcome to the LA Dodgers Roki Sasaki...

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

[DR28]

6 minutes ago, TURBO said:

Welcome to the LA Dodgers Roki Sasaki...

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Yep! So ******* annoying!!

[CheeseheadInQC]

30 minutes ago, TURBO said:

Welcome to the LA Dodgers Roki Sasaki...

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

I mean, almost certainly, but the Toronto-Cleveland trade seems to indicate the Blue Jays still think they are in the running.

[TURBO]

Lock this thread down, we all knew what was going to happen...  He has just become a guy I can easily root against.

F the Dodgers, so tired of of being a small market fan.

Roki Sasaki announced on his Instagram account on Friday that he will be signing with the Dodgers.

The Padres were informed earlier in the day that they were out of the sweepstakes, so it came down to the Dodgers and the Blue Jays. The Jays acquired extra international bonus pool money from the Guardians mid-afternoon, but it doesn’t appear to have been enough to push them over the top. Sasaki will join a ridiculously talented Dodgers’ rotation that already features countrymen Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani along with Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell. On paper, the Dodgers are already a much stronger team than the squad that just won the World Series back in October.

 

Source: Alden Gonzalez

[SF70]

36 minutes ago, TURBO said:

Lock this thread down, we all knew what was going to happen...  He has just become a guy I can easily root against.

F the Dodgers, so tired of of being a small market fan.

Roki Sasaki announced on his Instagram account on Friday that he will be signing with the Dodgers.

The Padres were informed earlier in the day that they were out of the sweepstakes, so it came down to the Dodgers and the Blue Jays. The Jays acquired extra international bonus pool money from the Guardians mid-afternoon, but it doesn’t appear to have been enough to push them over the top. Sasaki will join a ridiculously talented Dodgers’ rotation that already features countrymen Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani along with Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell. On paper, the Dodgers are already a much stronger team than the squad that just won the World Series back in October.

 

Source: Alden Gonzalez

He’ll blow his elbow out soon enough, all Dodgers pitchers eventually have arm injuries. 

The X on the LAD uniform just keeps getting bigger. 
 

[bigred]

2 hours ago, TURBO said:

Lock this thread down, we all knew what was going to happen...  He has just become a guy I can easily root against.

F the Dodgers, so tired of of being a small market fan.

Roki Sasaki announced on his Instagram account on Friday that he will be signing with the Dodgers.

The Padres were informed earlier in the day that they were out of the sweepstakes, so it came down to the Dodgers and the Blue Jays. The Jays acquired extra international bonus pool money from the Guardians mid-afternoon, but it doesn’t appear to have been enough to push them over the top. Sasaki will join a ridiculously talented Dodgers’ rotation that already features countrymen Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani along with Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell. On paper, the Dodgers are already a much stronger team than the squad that just won the World Series back in October.

 

Source: Alden Gonzalez

MLB needs a hard salary cap NOW! SMDH 🤮

[umphrey]

10 hours ago, bigred said:

MLB needs a hard salary cap NOW! SMDH 🤮

Well this is a different problem which is that the Asian international players are taking massive pay cuts to create a super team in LAD

[TURBO]

The Dodgers roster is now even batter than last year's, and they won the World Series.

If I could follow through (and I know I can't) this is the time to leave the game as a fan.  It's 100% deflating as a fan of a team that can't compete financially.

Just disgusting.

[TURBO]

I'd love to know if we even bothered calling Rosaki...  Not that we are ever tied to anyone in the media, but would love to know that we at least made an attempt.

[TURBO]

Now I see that the Phillies and Reds both made trades with the Dodgers at the last minute to give the Dodgers more pool money.

Why would any team, at this point in the Sasaki drama, be willing to help the Dodgers acquire him?

This entire situation is/was just plain gross.

[Fear The Chorizo]

On 1/18/2025 at 11:00 AM, TURBO said:

Now I see that the Phillies and Reds both made trades with the Dodgers at the last minute to give the Dodgers more pool money.

Why would any team, at this point in the Sasaki drama, be willing to help the Dodgers acquire him?

This entire situation is/was just plain gross.

Yes - why any other organization in MLB is willing to make any sort of trade with the Dodgers is beyond me.  Honestly, I don't care if they have tons of great prospects/blocked young players.  Honestly, screw them and force them to have to flat out release young talent for nothing because they have an all star team all on longterm deferred money deals.

I would be fully on board with an extended strike that costs a season or two when the next CBA gets negotiated if it meant evening the financial playing field and taking away all the advantages the Dodgers organization currently has over the rest of MLB.  I don't know why more small to mid market teams aren't already fully on board with that premise.

You can pencil in the Dodges for 95+ wins every season in perpetuity - even with the rest of their division doing everything it can to try and keep up.  

[bigred]

On 1/18/2025 at 10:52 AM, TURBO said:

I'd love to know if we even bothered calling Rosaki...  Not that we are ever tied to anyone in the media, but would love to know that we at least made an attempt.

Highly doubt it. 

[brewerfan82]

On 1/18/2025 at 11:52 AM, TURBO said:

I'd love to know if we even bothered calling Rosaki...  Not that we are ever tied to anyone in the media, but would love to know that we at least made an attempt.

7 hours ago, bigred said:

Highly doubt it. 

With the way this team has operated the past 10 years or so, ie. no stone left unturned, I would be very surprised if they didn't check in on him. Adam McCalvy wrote an article in December stating he believed they would likely "prepare a pitch" for Sasaki regardless of being a long shot to get him (https://www.mlb.com/news/brewers-chances-of-signing-roki-sasaki).

That said, 1.) I'm guessing they likely realized early on they weren't under serious consideration from Sasaki's camp and shifted gears, and 2.) they may have actually preferred to spend their international bonus pool on 20+ players instead of blowing most of it on one guy anyways.

[jay87shot]

I am a little peeve that Roki said he wanted to go to a team that develops pitchers and then went to the Dodgers the team that has basically ruined every good pitching prospect with arm surgeries/issues or ineffectiveness since Kershaw (I guess Urias could count maybe). I never believed we had a chance but at least if you say something like you don't want to go to the big markets and be on a team that is a great organization live up to it. I don't mind him wanting to go there if it is for money or because the have Shohei and Yamamoto but just say it.

[sveumrules]

4 minutes ago, jay87shot said:

I am a little peeve that Roki said he wanted to go to a team that develops pitchers and then went to the Dodgers the team that has basically ruined every good pitching prospect with arm surgeries/issues or ineffectiveness since Kershaw (I guess Urias could count maybe). I never believed we had a chance but at least if you say something like you don't want to go to the big markets and be on a team that is a great organization live up to it. I don't mind him wanting to go there if it is for money or because the have Shohei and Yamamoto but just say it.

Sasaki never said any of that, his agent did, to the press.

[jay87shot]

13 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Sasaki never said any of that, his agent did, to the press.

In today's world, if the agent says it I am taking it as the players statement. I get agents usually only talk to get more money but this is a situation those theatrics don't have a place since Sasaki makes the same regardless of what team he picked, unless there was a lot of money going under the table.

[sveumrules]

2 minutes ago, jay87shot said:

In today's world, if the agent says it I am taking it as the players statement. I get agents usually only talk to get more money but this is a situation those theatrics don't have a place since Sasaki makes the same regardless of what team he picked, unless there was a lot of money going under the table.

The quote from the agent was, “I think there’s an argument to be made that a smaller, mid market team might be more beneficial for him as a soft landing.”

Classic agent speak loaded with qualifiers…“I think”, “an argument to be made”, “might be more beneficial”.

He never once indicated he was speaking on behalf of his client’s desires.

Wolfe’s job was to make it seem like it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that Sasaki was signing with the Dodgers, so that’s what he did.

[Playing Catch]

10 minutes ago, jay87shot said:

In today's world, if the agent says it I am taking it as the players statement. I get agents usually only talk to get more money but this is a situation those theatrics don't have a place since Sasaki makes the same regardless of what team he picked, unless there was a lot of money going under the table.

Just riffing on your agent/player decision-making aspect...

I think this whole Sasaki saga is a great lesson in how free agency largely works. Nearly all 30 teams were able to offer about the same type of contract. So which team signed the player? The one the player wanted to sign with.

My point is that often times we, as fans, like to blame GMs or owners for not signing players, like the players are heads of lettuce at the grocery store. In free agency, the players decide where to sign. Period.

Don't mistake this with my being naive about the importance of the size of the contract. But the point is, is that the Brewers very well may need to offer more than market value in order to sign some players. In some cases, the player has told the agent to ONLY deal with these 10 teams, much like a limited no-trade clause.

[nate82]

On 1/18/2025 at 9:52 AM, TURBO said:

I'd love to know if we even bothered calling Rosaki...  Not that we are ever tied to anyone in the media, but would love to know that we at least made an attempt.

Why does this even matter?  The Brewers made the correct move in signing multiple players instead of reducing the amount of international players they could sign by signing Rosaki. 

Why sign one maybe they work out player when you can sign four or five for the same amount?

[Fear The Chorizo]

1 hour ago, nate82 said:

Why does this even matter?  The Brewers made the correct move in signing multiple players instead of reducing the amount of international players they could sign by signing Rosaki. 

Why sign one maybe they work out player when you can sign four or five for the same amount?

that is way oversimplifying things considering Sasaki is 23 and can essentially step into MLB on day 1 as a TOR-type pitcher, where most international signees get signed 6 or so years younger and teams do have to wait 2-4 years to understand if they're destined for MLB or not.

The Dodgers can afford only signing 1 international player in this type of cycle when everyone knows he's a MLB-ready bonafide ace, and they have no need to worry about what their roster will look like 5-6 years from now since they can just sign the best free agents almost at will to fill any holes down the road.  

[nate82]

6 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

that is way oversimplifying things considering Sasaki is 23 and can essentially step into MLB on day 1 as a TOR-type pitcher, where most international signees get signed 6 or so years younger and teams do have to wait 2-4 years to understand if they're destined for MLB or not.

The Dodgers can afford only signing 1 international player in this type of cycle when everyone knows he's a MLB-ready bonafide ace, and they have no need to worry about what their roster will look like 5-6 years from now since they can just sign the best free agents almost at will to fill any holes down the road.  

It is oversimplifying it because that is the reality for the Brewers.  I don't really care about the Dodgers.  The Brewers signing one player to about $4-5mm of their international bonus pool makes very little sense.  The Brewers need to spread that risk out and thus why offering Sasaki anything doesn't really matter.  They need to spread the money out and get as many players as they can.

From all of the reports coming out about Sasaki it sounds like he is not yet MLB ready and will need some time in the minors.  How much time in the minors that is tough to say.  But he won't just slot into a TOR-type pitcher.