Roki Sasaki's Agent Provides Major Update on Meetings With Dodgers, Others

Maren Angus-Coombs | Jan 1, 2025

Dec 10, 2024; Dallas, TX, USA; Agent Joel Wolfe, agent for Roki Sasaki, speaks with the media at Hilton Anatole. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-Imagn Images / Tim Heitman-Imagn Images

Joel Wolfe did not disclose the exact number of teams that met with Roki Sasaki in recent weeks.

However, it is publicly known that the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, and San Francisco Giants have all had meetings with him. The San Diego Padres also met with him as reported by the San Diego Union Tribune.

Wolfe, the agent for the 23-year-old right-hander, provided an update on Sasaki's negotiations during a 20-minute video call with reporters on Monday.

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The call lacked specific details, but it did offer some insight into the recruiting process and provided a glimpse into Sasaki's journey.

"I think that the teams that met with him would tell you he was engaged, he asked questions – and he gave every team something that he called a homework assignment, the team that he was going to meet with," Wolfe said. "And I think it was a great opportunity for the teams to really show what they specialize in. Without giving the actual details of what that assignment was, 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 teams."

Following Sasaki's posting by the Chiba Lotte Marines on December 9, Wolfe reached out to all 30 MLB teams, inviting them to submit "any type of information that they wanted Roki to review."

Twenty teams responded, many of them with elaborate presentations.

“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 would strengthen an already formidable Dodgers rotation, which includes right-handers Tyler Glasnow and Yamamoto, and left-hander Blake Snell, who signed a five-year, $182 million deal in November.

The rotation will also benefit from the return of Shohei Ohtani, expected to resume pitching in early 2025 after recovering from elbow surgery. Additionally, right-handers Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin are set to return from elbow surgeries, and three-time Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw is anticipated to re-sign. Young right-handers Landon Knack and Bobby Miller will add further depth.

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