Dodgers' Recent Moves Appear to Hint at Confidence in Signing Roki Sasaki

The Roki Sasaki saga started on Dec. 10.

That is the day his Nippon Professional Baseball team, the Chiba Lotte Marines, posted the 23-year-old and when his agent Joel Wolfe reached out to all 30 MLB teams. All but 10 teams responded.

The Sasaki sweepstakes have had two major wrinkles, the first of which is the homework assignment he gave to teams. Wolfe provided a vague idea of what was presented.

"Without giving the actual details of what that assignment was," he explained, "every team got that very same assignment, and it enabled them to show how they can analyze and communicate information with him, and really showed where he was coming from in analyzing and creating his selection criteria, in looking at different teams."

This move shows how much care the young phenom is putting into his North American baseball future. Sasaki has the humility to know where he can improve and is by no means looking for short-lived success. According to Wolfe, he has his sights set on something far greater.

“Roki is by no means a finished product. He knows it and the teams know it. He is incredibly talented. We all know that,” Wolfe said. “But he is a guy that wants to be great. He’s not coming here to be rich or to get a huge contract. He wants to be great. He wants to be one of the greatest ever. I see that now and he has articulated it.

An indicator that he would arrive from overseas purely for a large pay-day would be if he waited two seasons so that his status would no longer limit teams to signing him for international bonus pool money. The fact that he can only make somewhere around $5-7 million regardless of where he signs points to someone who wants to immediately get to work on his journey to be the greatest.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, known not to spare a dime when it comes to a major free agent, might be trying to get an edge given these restrictions.

Marcos Grunfeld reported that the Dodgers are putting a potential one-year hold on their international amateur signees. L.A. currently has $5.1 million in the bonus pool of a maximum amount of just over $7.5 million.

The Dodgers seem to be expecting to sign RHP Roki Sasaki, as they are putting their international amateur signees on hold. A source says they are proposing to their 2025 class that they sign in 2026.

Sasaki has not made any decision yet
— Marcos Grunfeld 🇮🇱 / Sígueme en YouTube (@TheBeatwriter) January 7, 2025

By hypothetically making their current amateur signings wait until the 2026 season, they are squeezing out every dollar to use on the Japanese phenom.

Joining the defending champions would reunite Sasaki with two of his Japan National team teammates in Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

It's unclear if the Dodgers are confident in their chances to land Sasaki, or just doing everything they can to have the best shot at signing him. It's hard to believe they would put their other signings on hold, though, if they didn't at least think they had a shot at signing the Japanese phenom.

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