Article: In A Frustrating Step Forward, Blue Jays Finish Second For Star Free Agent

[Alex Lamoureux]

The Blue Jays have added another silver medal to their growing pile of second-place bids for free agents.

Results are in for the Roki Sasaki Sweepstakes, and the incoming pitcher from Japan shocked no one by announcing that he will play for the Dodgers in 2025. The long offseason gave us plenty of time for rumours that falsely raised the hopes of Blue Jays fans everywhere. The team has become the bridesmaid again, still never a bride. The list of players rumoured to almost become Blue Jays in the last two years could make a World Series run on its own.

This disappointment for Blue Jays fans is a repetition of a painful pattern. In the 2023 offseason, the Blue Jays reportedly offered Shohei Ohtani a 10-year $700 million contract. Rumours abounded that the Blue Jays had reserved an upscale sushi restaurant for dinner with Ohtani and that Ohtani was aboard a private jet from Los Angeles to Toronto. It contained Dragon’s Den panelist Robert Herjavec, who was greeted at the airport by a large group of sports reporters. Ohtani signed with the Dodgers, who had always been his first choice. Earlier this offseason, news stories about the Juan Soto sweepstakes mentioned Toronto as a possible destination, and then he signed a 15-year $765 million deal with the Mets. Sasaki, who won the last World Baseball Classic with Team Japan in 2023, joins the Dodgers “super-team” and will try to help them repeat their World Series victory.

After signing Kevin Gausman in the 2021 offseason for 5 years at $110 million, the Blue Jays haven’t acquired any top free agents in the last three offseasons. Some speculate that agents are using the Blue Jays as leverage to get big contracts elsewhere because Rogers is willing to offer big money for elite players but hasn’t been able to seal the deal. Players are also motivated by winning championships, and the current state of the Blue Jays is not a championship team. The ownership can sign nobody and finish in last place next year, or they could announce tomorrow that they’re signing Alex Bregman, Anthony Santander, and Jack Flaherty to make a run at a Wild Card spot. But the Jays can’t announce all their signings simultaneously, and it might be hard to make the first move and convince the big-name free agents that more additions to the team will be forthcoming. Negotiations with homegrown star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. for a contract extension may hinge on whether the Blue Jays have a competitive team going forward. Reporters have said for weeks that the Blue Jays are intensely negotiating with Bregman and Santander. Still, the string of agonizing not-quite-deals has me wondering if these players will again find a different team and leave the Blue Jays as the second-highest bidder.

Everything the Dodgers are doing to build a super-team is allowed by baseball’s collective bargaining agreement. Still, it raises concerns about competitive balance when an international amateur like Sasaki chooses to join the best team because they’re the most likely to win the World Series. It’s possible that a stronger Jays roster could have convinced him to move to Canada, but he may have always planned to sign with the Dodgers and only met with other teams out of courtesy. In his announcement today that he signed a contract to play for the Dodgers, Sasaki wrote: “I will do my best to make it the right decision when I look back after my baseball career.” The Dodgers superteam will include four future Hall of Famers players – Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Clayton Kershaw. (Kershaw is not officially a Dodger at this time, but he’s expected to re-sign with the team and throw the 3000^th strikeout of his career this year).

Sasaki’s early posting makes him a uniquely valuable player. He is considered an international amateur, so the teams bidding for his contract are limited to offering him money from the international bonus pool. The Dodgers signed him for $6.5 million, and next year, he will earn the MLB base salary of $760,000. If Sasaki had waited until after the 2026 season, he could have signed a contract worth over $30 million/year, so the Dodgers have secured a valuable asset at an enormous discount. International free agents aged 25 or older who have played professionally for six years have more freedom to negotiate with MLB teams and play for the highest bidder. His agent, Joel Wolfe, said that playing Major League Baseball was Sasaki’s lifelong dream, so he wanted to join MLB as soon as possible, even if it meant potentially losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars.

Sasaki debuted in Nippon Professional Baseball at age 19 and played four seasons, accumulating a 29-15 win-loss record with a 2.10 ERA. He stands 6’4”, and his fastball tops out at 102 miles per hour, with an average velocity of 97 mph in 2024. His strikeout rate per nine innings was an astonishing 11.5, the highest ever for a pitcher going from Japan to MLB. He threw a 19-strikeout perfect game in 2022 and followed it with eight perfect innings in his next start, setting a professional baseball record with 52 consecutive batters retired. Concerns about arm fatigue have limited his workload, so he recorded only 111 innings pitched in 2024 and has never pitched more than 130 in a season.

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