This sounds promising.
As much as the San Diego Padres and their fans hate to admit it, the success of a given offseason hinges, in part, on what the Los Angeles Dodgers do. Even if the Padres make smart moves and objectively improve their roster, some pundits will still consider it a failure if LA wreaks havoc yet again and outpaces San Diego. However, the offseason proceedings have gotten an interesting wrinkle with the news that Roki Sasaki is expected to be posted and sign with a MLB team before the 2025 season.
Sasaki has a some similarities to Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s free agency last offseason in the sense that he is coming from Japan with big-time raw stuff. However, where things differ significantly is that Sasaki is substantial younger than Yamamoto with (perhaps) better raw stuff, and his free agency is going to be governed by international free agency rules which levels the financial playing field a LOT.
Roki Sasaki signing with the Padres would be a great start to sticking it to the Dodgers
Given that LA can’t throw money around like they’re used to, there have already been some encouraging signs that the Padres would be in the running for Sasaki. Now, Padres insider Kevin Acee seems to think that the Friars have a really good chance to bring Sasaki into the fold.
The rationale from Acee is similar to what has been hinted at previously. The Padres have scouted Sasaki a lot and he has a very close relationship with Yu Darvish. Being on the West Coast doesn’t hurt their chances either. But the Padres beat writer openly suggests that San Diego’s odds of signing Sasaki are good, and it seems likely that Acee heard that from someone who knows something.
There are moving parts to all of this, of course. The Padres will have to decide in short order if using all of their international bonus pool for Sasaki — and basically scrapping any existing deals for international free agents they were planning to give out this year — is worth it. The Friars also have to come to the conclusion that Sasaki’s struggles in 2024 in Japan aren’t indicative of a larger problem that could haunt him in MLB.
Odds are that the Padres will conclude to push their IFA chips in on Sasaki would be a worthwhile endeavor. It isn’t a guarantee that Sasaki would be immediately ready for prime time, but signing him away from the Dodgers would be a great way to make a statement to LA and the rest of the league that top talent is accumulating in San Diego and they’d better be on their toes if they want to keep up.
