In an absolutely shocking twist that will only serve to absolutely shock even more when this winds up with Roki Sasaki going to the team everyone knew he was going to a year ago (sarcasm and such), the San Diego Padres are reportedly out of the running for the Japanese ace.
Hearing from multiple sources that the Padres are out in Roki Sasaki.
They will begin their international signings of Jhoan De La Cruz and Carlos Alvarez in the next few hours.— Francys Romero (@francysromeroFR) January 17, 2025
International news: LHP Carlos Alvarez will sign with the Padres, league sources said. Alvarez was originally committed to Padres but like some other prominent prospects he pursued other opportunities while teams tried to figure out international budgets for Roki Sasaki.— Will Sammon (@WillSammon) January 17, 2025
That leaves the Dodgers and Blue Jays as the two finalists on Roki Sasaki, and I wonder if we’re about to hear about the Blue Jays getting cut soon, too. Then it’d just be a matter of the Dodgers acquiring enough IFA pool funds to satisfy Sasaki’s signing request. We’ll get there when we get there (I don’t expect the Cubs to be involved at this point, having now signed most of their class – they have a small amount of pool space remaining, but they also appear not yet to have finalized a couple of their notable deals).
As for the Padres, this is no doubt a major blow to their hopes for an offseason that has seen them do almost nothing. They could make Sasaki work financially, obviously, and that would be a big boost to a club that can compete in 2025 as is, but has holes like any other club. The problem is that (reported) continued cuts to the baseball operations budget (seemingly) related to their TV troubles and the ownership infighting means that they cannot go out there and spend big in free agency. Indeed, it’s conceivable that, after missing out on Sasaki, the Padres go the other way and make some sell-oriented trades.
I tend to think it’s more likely we’ll see the Padres now in the market for some modest additions, because they were probably entirely on hold waiting on Sasaki.