Padres Rumors: Roki Sasaki Doesn't Care About Joining Team With Japanese Stars

Yu Darvish wasn't a part of the San Diego Padres' initial in-person meeting with Japanese free agent Roki Sasaki, and it wasn't because he didn't want to be.

Sasaki didn't want any current players at any of his meetings. He also made it clear that having Japanese teammates isn't a big concern for him.

“We’ve had numerous conversations about team location, market size, teams’ success … but he doesn’t seem overly concerned about whether a team has Japanese players or not,” Sasaki's agent Joel Wolfe said. “In the past, as I’ve represented Japanese players, that was sometimes an issue, but it was never a topic of discussion.”

More news: Yu Darvish Was Not Part of Padres Meeting With Roki Sasaki

Wolfe hosted a call this week to shed light on the in-person meetings and how the recruiting process has gone so far for his client.

After Sasaki was posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines, Wolfe asked all 30 teams to to submit “any type of information that they wanted Roki to review.”

The response was incredible as Wolfe received correspondence from 20 teams.

“The level of preparation, the videos … it was like the Roki film festival,” Wolfe said. “There were in-depth PowerPoint presentations, short films, some teams made actual books. People clearly spent hundreds of hours researching Roki and his personal and professional background, and I can’t say how much he and his family appreciated it.”

Sasaki has since returned home to discuss the next steps with his family. According to Wolfe, Sasaki could "possibly (meet) with one or two additional teams or (narrow) the field, which I think may be more likely.”

The Padres are still viewed as a top contender to sign Sasaki, and Darvish made a huge impression on the 23-year-old pitcher as teammates during the World Baseball Classic. His experience during that tournament is what inspired him to make the leap, according to Wolfe.

“I think with his experience at the WBC, being around [San Diego pitcher Yu] Darvish and Ohtani, and then seeing [Cubs left-hander Shota] Imanaga come over and dominate at such a level in the first half, he realized that in order to take it to the next level, he had to come here, play against the best players in the world every day and tap into all the resources major league teams have to help him become one of the best pitchers ever, not just to come out of NPB, but in all of Major League Baseball.”

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