Following Roki Sasaki’s announcement Friday that he was signing with the Dodgers, it didn’t take long for grumbles regarding his free agency to emerge.
Over the last year, there had been speculation around the sport that the Dodgers had reached a possible handshake deal with Sasaki, even before the 23-year-old phenom was released by his Japanese club – the process by which players from foreign professional leagues are made available to major league teams for signing.
Prior to this offseason, rumors swirled that the Dodgers possessed some sort of advantage in the star pitcher sweepstakes – a unique situation in itself since Sasaki is under 25 and therefore limited to signing a minor league contract in as an international amateur with a modest signing bonus.
“I’ve heard rumors about a deal being done with the Dodgers — you know, having a plan for him,” former Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel, a teammate of Sasaki’s in Japan last season, told the New York Post in November.
It then came to a head on Friday, when just hours after Sasaki agreed to his $6.5 million deal with the Dodgers, a former general manager went public with more viral claims.
“I think you’ll find that several teams are going to ask the commissioner’s office to investigate this particular signing,” Jim Bowden, former general manager of the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals and currently an analyst at CBS Sports. and The Athletic, told Foul Territory. “There were several front offices that believed there was a prior agreement between the Dodgers and Roki Sasaki before this process began.”
It turns out that Major League Baseball had looked into the situation before the process even began.
According to a league official, MLB conducted an investigation before authorizing Sasaki’s release to “ensure the memorandum of understanding was followed.” Another person with knowledge of the situation, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the league had interviewed “numerous parties” as part of its investigation but found no evidence to support the claims. rumors.
Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, has also repeatedly denied the notion of a predetermined deal between his client and the Dodgers (or any other club). At the December Winter Meetings, Wolfe said Sasaki’s decision to sign for the 2025 international period (which only started on Wednesday) was made to ensure fairness across the league.
“There have been accusations, allegations, all false, made about predetermined agreements, things like that,” Wolfe said then. “However, MLB rightly wanted to ensure that the playing field would be level and fair for everyone. So they did their due diligence and interviewed many parties in advance to ensure that it was indeed the case and they wanted to make sure that Roki would most likely – even though he would have the option to sign in 2024 – give himself the best opportunity to get the best deal.
The attention to Sasaki’s post dates back to last offseason, when some people in the sport believed Sasaki could move to the MLB for the 2024 campaign.
This did not happen, with Sasaki remaining in Japan for what became a fourth and final season with the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Nippon Professional Baseball league. But even then, the Dodgers’ looming interest (and considerable attention from scouts) in the budding ace was clear, as the Times reported in November 2023. And soon after, the industry’s dominant narrative was that the Dodgers would be Sasaki’s most likely landing spot in the MLB. , each time he finally crossed the Pacific.
Suspicions from opposing teams grew towards the end of last season. As of late October, the Dodgers had more money in their 2024 international bonus pool — which is typically used to sign teenage prospects from Latin America — than any other team. They had kept about $2.5 million at that point in the year, but only three other clubs had even $1 million, according to the Associated Press.
To some, this gave the impression that the Dodgers were preparing for a possible assignment of Sasaki. Since international amateurs like Sasaki can only be signed by teams through their bonus pools, it seemed like the Dodgers might have a financial advantage in signing him over the rest of the league, should he sign a deal over the course of of the 2024 signing period.
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman was asked about the team’s remaining bonus pool for 2024 during a press conference before the World Series, but declined to answer the question, stating that his attention was focused on the team’s upcoming game against the New York Yankees.
“That’s not important right now,” Friedman responded angrily.
Ultimately, the Dodgers’ 2024 pool money wasn’t a factor in Sasaki’s free agency anyway.
After Chiba Lotte decided to sign Sasaki in November, the pitcher and his representatives opted to have him wait until the 2025 international signing period to pick a team – ensuring that all 30 clubs would have their entire bonus allocation available for pursue him.
For the Dodgers, this ended up being a disadvantage. Due to luxury tax penalties, they had the smallest bonus pool available to sign international players in the 2025 class, tied with the Giants for an MLB low of $5.1 million. Other teams had as much as $7.5 million in their bonuses. Sasaki’s other two eventual finalists, the San Diego Padres and Toronto Blue Jays, each received $6.3 million.
Despite this, the Dodgers have always been considered favorites – for more mundane reasons typical of other free agencies.
Money didn’t seem to be Sasaki’s main motivation, given that he could have waited two years to join MLB and sign as an unrestricted free agent (like Yoshinobu Yamamoto did in getting a 325 million dollars over 12 years from the club). Dodgers last offseason).
But the Dodgers – who finally added to their bonus pool via a few trades on Friday – have apparently checked plenty of other potentially desirable boxes for Sasaki.
They were coming off a 2024 World Series championship and were already considered the favorites to repeat in 2025. They had a reputation for helping pitchers reach their full potential, even despite the team’s well-documented pitching injury issues. last year. And they had two former Japanese teammates in Sasaki, Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani, each of whom likely contributed to the club’s recruiting efforts.
Sasaki went through an extensive recruitment process. According to Wolfe, executive vice president of Wasserman Media Group, 20 teams submitted an initial pitch to Sasaki in December. After that, the pitcher held an initial round of in-person meetings with a handful of clubs — including the Yankees, New York Mets, San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs and others — at Wasserman’s offices in Southern California before the holidays.
After returning to Japan for several weeks around the new year, Sasaki then visited each of his three finalists, the Blue Jays, Padres and Dodgers, in the weeks leading up to his decision.
Multiple times in recent days, it has been reported that the Padres and Blue Jays are confident in their chances of landing Sasaki. The Blue Jays added their own extra bonus in a trade hours before Sasaki’s decision Friday morning.
But the complementarity between the Dodgers and their latest Japanese recruit remained too obvious, too strong. And, as far as league officials are concerned following their investigation into the situation, it appears Sasaki is in Los Angeles for a reason: It’s the place he ultimately wanted to be.
