Roki Sasaki Meets With Unexpected Team

"It could get crazy." That's the word from baseball executives on the Roki Sasaki sweepstakes that could come to a head in the coming days.

It’s been apparent in recent weeks that the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers have been the frontrunners for the 23-year-old Japanese pitching sensation. But his latest team meeting came with a club about as far away from LA and San Diego as you can get in the major leagues: the Toronto Blue Jays.

Roki Sasaki, the Blue Jays’ latest big-name pursuit, had meetings in Toronto: Sources https://t.co/E5RikYGSbg

— The Athletic MLB (@TheAthleticMLB) January 13, 2025

The surprise here isn’t necessarily about geography as much as it is about quality of roster and pitching development. The Dodgers are the defending World Series champions, and the Padres were a playoff team in 2024 with definite designs of getting back there again this season.

The Blue Jays, on the other hand, had their worst season since the previous decade, and have been spurned by just about every big name free agent you can name over the past couple of seasons.  

And as reported by Ken Rosenthal in The Athletic, "The Blue Jays do not seem an obvious fit for Sasaki, who is still maturing as a pitcher and thought to be heavily weighing the quality of a team’s pitching development in his decision-making. The last homegrown Jays pitcher to make 30 starts in back-to-back seasons was right-hander Marcus Stroman in 2016-17, and he was developed by the previous front office."

After fabulous flameouts in courting Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto in recent offseasons, are the Blue Jays and their fans set to have their hearts broken again by the latest phenom, Sasaki? And this time, it won't be over money. As an international free agent, the 23-year-old Sasaki can only be signed through a team’s international bonus pool, which ranges from about $5.1 million to $7.5 million. 

Photo: © Sam Navarro-Imagn Images