Guardians News and Notes: Twenty Teams Wait on Roki Sasaki
News and Notes for Tuesday, December 31st, 2024
Twenty teams reached out with interest in Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki, pitcher signing in the international free agent market in the next three weeks (before January 23rd):
Roki Sasaki’s agent Joel Wolfe said 20 teams initially reached out with interest in his client, sending recruiting presentations and videos, some of them even books.
— Alden González (@Alden_Gonzalez) December 31, 2024
Given Chris Antonetti's response to a question regarding Sasaki where he said the Guardians would "always pursue available talent", I'd be shocked if Cleveland wasn't one of those 20 teams. Sasaki has made six visits and may make more. Cleveland isn't one of the six so far.
One interesting thing is the potential effect Sasaki waiting to sign may have on handshake agreements teams have with other international players.
(Presumably) no team which is still in the Sasaki sweepstakes will execute their committed deals on 1/15, which will create total market chaos since most teams have most or all of their pool committed and some of the best prospects are committed to the Sasaki meeting teams
— Jarrett Seidler (@jaseidler) December 31, 2024
Might be interesting to see if some of the better international free agents become available either because their handshake organization signs Sasaki or because the organization doesn't make their signing official on January 15th when those signings are allowed to be posted.
Jason Lloyd of the Athletic ranked best Cleveland sports moments of 2024 and the Guardians featured prominently.
What better way to reflect on 2024 than with the immortal words of Tim Herrin: