Blue Jays gave Roki Sasaki a parting gift while failing miserably in their actual pitch

The Los Angeles Dodgers signed Roki Sasaki, which should've been predictable to those of us in the media. However, Sasaki and agent Joel Wolfe misled the vast majority of us, along with several MLB teams, into thinking it was actually possible that Sasaki didn't care much about market size, proximity to Japan or the fact that Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto – two of Sasaki's teammates on the Japan WBC team – were recruiting him to LA.

The Dodgers were always a shoe-in, we just love a good narrative.

Nonetheless, Sasaki did benefit quite a bit while making the rounds and taking pitches from rival MLB clubs. The Toronto Blue Jays know this firsthand. The poor Jays and Ross Atkins have finished in second place for MLB starts like Juan Soto, Shohei Ohtani, Sasaki and more the last several winters, but they give it their best shot every time – I mean, what else are they supposed to do? Only certain athletes are open to playing north of the border, and they've come close with some of the biggest names in the sport. For that, I applaud them.

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Blue Jays gave Roki Sasaki some important information before he signed with Dodgers

For the following, I do not. During some of their meetings with Sasaki, the Blue Jays gave the 23-year-old some of their most pertinent scouting information on him, in particular why his fastball dipped last season. I'll let ESPN's Jeff Passan describe the process:

"Toronto impressed Sasaki with its answer to a burning question: Why had his sizzling fastball lost velocity in 2024? The explanation from Frank Herrmann, a Blue Jays baseball operations staffer who had pitched in the big leagues and was Sasaki's teammate with the Chiba Lotte Marines, and Sam Greene, the Blue Jays' assistant pitching coach, blended a discussion of data, mechanics and feel that boosted their pursuit. Sasaki spent multiple days in Toronto, and as he departed, the Blue Jays were confident," Passan wrote.

That confidence evaporated the second Sasaki was out of their sight. While the Blue Jays presentation was impressive, what they essentially did was provide Sasaki with the cheat codes to his own video game before he took said game to his friend's house. Sasaki will play with the Dodgers and, thanks the some of the information Toronto willingly provided him, could be even better as a result.

You'll get him one of these days, Ross Atkins.