Winter Meetings Rumors: Roki Sasaki Signing Timeline, Garrett Crochet Asking Price

Here’s the latest intel from MLB’s winter meetings in Dallas, where the action is heating up after the signing of Juan Soto.

The White Sox entered the winter meetings expecting to trade Crochet by the end of the week. / Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Imagine all 30 teams getting the chance to sign Paul Skenes out of LSU as a free agent. That’s not too dissimilar from the expected market of international free agent pitcher Roki Sasaki, a 23-year-old potential No. 1 starter from Japan who is available to all teams for a signing bonus less than the $9.2 million the Pittsburgh Pirates gave Skenes and then can pitch at a major league minimum salary.

The Chiba Lotte Marines posted Sasaki on Monday, opening a 45-day negotiating window. No team is permitted to sign such an international free agent “amateur” between Dec. 15 and Jan. 14. The most money available in teams’ 2025 international signing bonus pools is $7.55 million.

According to one executive with one of Sasaki’s many suitors, Sasaki and his agent, Joel Wolfe, plan to start meeting formally with teams next week. Discussions can continue through the so-called “dark” signing period. That time frame makes it likely Sasaki will sign between Jan. 15–23.

“I believe there will be a holiday break, and they’ll resume discussions fairly early on in the new year,” the source said.

Sasaki has true top-of-the rotation stuff with arm action and athleticism similar to Zack Wheeler. The downsides include a drop in velocity over the past two seasons and a lack of durability. His career high is 129 1/3 innings.

APSTEIN: Roki Sasaki Nears Lifelong MLB Dream As Free Agency Sweepstakes Begin

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Free agent pitcher Max Fried is the first winner of the Juan Soto fallout. In signing with the New York Yankees for eight years and $218 million ($27.25 million average annual value), his market proved to be just above that of Carlos Rodon ($27 million AAV) and Tyler Glasnow ($27.3 million). The Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays all were in on Fried after losing out on Soto.

Fried, 31 in January, is a master at generating weak contact and groundballs, especially with his elite curveball and sinker. The Yankees, who have some interest in Nolan Arenado if the Cardinals pay down the contract, had better upgrade their third base defense. 

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The Chicago White Sox came to the winter meetings believing they would trade left-handed starter Garrett Crochet by the end of the week. Time is running out. The Sox have stuck by their high asking price ever since they put him on the market at the trade deadline. Said one high-ranking source of a team that was interested in Crochet, “We’re out. They wanted three of our top prospects. Three. We can’t do that.”

Crochet has top of the rotation stuff. There is disagreement on his value because Crochet, 25, has just two years of control and threw a career high 146 innings after throwing an average of 36 innings over the previous six years, including college. He is something of a comp to Glasnow—a guy with ace stuff without the ace track record. The Los Angeles Dodgers gave Tampa Bay two major league ready prospects, Jonny DeLuca and Ryan Pepiot, to get Glasnow, who had one year of control before Los Angeles then signed him to an extension.

Clubs generally prefer to trade starters before the season because of injury risk. The market for Crochet could heat up when elite free agent starters Fried and Corbin Burnes come off the board.

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Paul Goldschmidt looks like a good buy-low option, especially for the Detroit Tigers, who want a veteran leader to complement their young core. When Mark DeRosa managed Team USA in the WBC, it was Goldschmidt who interrupted the manager’s first-day clubhouse address to challenge his fellow All-Stars himself. Goldschmidt suffered through a down 2024 in which it appears he lost confidence in being quick enough with his bat to get to velocity. Selling out to hit the ball out front (not his strong suit) resulted in the highest pull percentage of his career (39%) and made him vulnerable to off-speed (.169, one home run). 

The good news: when he did hit the ball, he hit it hard. His exit velocity (91.2 MPH) was right in line with his career norm. Here are the “unluckiest” qualified sluggers of 2024 to hit the free agent market (biggest gap between slugging and expected slugging): 1. Soto (-.077!) 2. Goldschmidt (-.036) 3. Ty France (-.022).

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The Baltimore Orioles continue to stumble with the task of finishing off a talented team. After a terrible trade deadline last season (Eloy Jiménez? Trevor Rogers?), they still aren’t shooting high enough to consolidate a good core of young players. Baltimore did need a right-handed bat, but Tyler O’Neill (three years, $49.5 million), despite his 31 homers last year, is at best a complementary player. He doesn’t hit right-handed pitching (.209, 35% strikeout rate) and is not durable (he’s played 120 games once). Catcher Gary Sánchez, another addition, is a defensive liability who has been a below average offensive player for the past five years (OPS+ of 93, 28% strikeout rate). Baltimore has added strikeouts without a net improvement.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, keep making savvy moves with the addition of Michael Conforto on a one-year deal. For two years Conforto didn’t hit at Oracle Park in San Francisco (.225, 9 home runs) but was much better on the road (.248, 26 HR, including .852 OPS in 2024). Over that time, Oracle Park and Seattle’s T-Mobile Park were the two worst ballparks for offense.

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Left-handed starter Patrick Sandoval, 28, who underwent Tommy John surgery midway through last season, is drawing interest from the Philadelphia Phillies, among other teams, with the idea he will rehab through 2025 and be good to go in ’26. He is an intriguing buy-low option as a middle of the rotation lefty with a nasty changeup.

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Now that Dick Allen has been elected to the Hall of Fame, the player with the highest OPS+ not in the Hall and not connected to PEDs (min. 1,700 games and Hall eligible) is Lance Berkman at 144. Berkman (1.2% of the vote) was one-and-done on the 2019 writers’ ballot. Right behind him are Frank Howard (142), Norm Cash (139) and Bob Johnson (139).

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Soto became the highest paid player in baseball with almost no defensive and baserunning value, a rarity in a game in which that title usually goes to five-tool players and starting pitchers. The list of previous highest paid players in the free agent era based almost entirely on their hitting: Rod Carew (signed 1979), Bobby Bonilla (1991), Albert Belle (1996), Mo Vaughn (1998), Carlos Delgado (2000) and Miguel Cabrera (2014). Most did not age well.

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Soto has a career slash line of .285/.421/.532 with an OPS+ of 160.

Yordan Álvarez has a slash line of .298/.390/.583 with an OPS+ of 166.

Soto’s AAV is $51 million. Álvarez’s AAV is $19.2 million. The major difference in value is that Soto signed as a free agent at 26 while Álvarez signed a six-year extension that began at age 26. Soto is a year younger. Soto still is so young he is younger than four of the top five home run hitters in the Triple-A International League this year.

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