San Diego Padres

The San Diego Padres are in Roki Sasaki's final three

Friars are rumored to be one of three finalists for the Japanese pitching phenom.

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Sometime between Jan. 15 and Jan. 23, Roki Sasaki is going to sign with a Major League Baseball team. The San Diego Padres have a 33% chance to be that team.

According to multiple published reports on Monday, the 23-year-old Japanese pitching phenom has narrowed down the list of teams he's considering to this final three:

  • San Diego Padres
  • Los Angeles Dodgers
  • Toronto Blue Jays

He's had multiple meetings with all three teams, including a trip to San Diego over the weekend. For anybody wondering why this is such a big deal, here's a little context.

Sasaki is already considered one of the best pitching prospects the world has ever seen. He was one of Team Japan's best pitchers during the World Baseball Classic (quite the accomplishment on a staff that also featured Yu Darvish, Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto).

As a 20-year-old in Japan's top professional league, he threw a perfect game with 19 strikeouts — a performance that reminds some scouts of former Aztec ace Stephen Strasburg's dominating run at San Diego State.

Sasaki is too young to be a full-fledged free agent, so he is subject to MLB's international bonus pool rules, meaning there can be no multimillion dollar bidding war like there was for Juan Soto. Every one of the league's 30 teams had the chance to sign him, and nearly all of them at least made an effort to do it. Sasaki only took meetings with a handful of teams before deciding he would only consider his final trio.

The Blue Jays being a finalist is a bit of a surprise, and, potentially, a very encouraging sign for the Padres. It's long been assumed in baseball circles that the Dodgers and Padres would be the favorites to land him. Sasaki's agent, Joel Wolfe, hinted at December's Winter Meetings that the young fireballer might be well-suited to start his MLB career in a smaller media market.

Toronto and San Diego both joining Los Angeles on the finalist list suggests that is very much a factor in Sasaki's decision making process.

If the Friars are able to close the deal, it would immediately turn their unusually quiet offseason into one of the most successful winters in general manager AJ Preller's tenure, giving them an affordable ace for the next six seasons.

The international signing period opens on Jan. 15, and Sasaki must have a deal in place by the 23rd or his posting window closes, and he'll have to pitch another season in Japan, then go through this entire process again next year.

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