Roki Sasaki Rumors: Dodgers not a slam dunk, Mets trending down, one dark horse

The biggest domino left in the MLB offseason is set to fall soon: Roki Sasaki officially becomes eligible to sign with a big-league team when the next international amateur signing window opens on Jan. 15, and while reports indicate that he's not in any rush, he needs to make a decision by the time his posting window closes on Jan. 23. All of which means that this is most likely the week in which we finally figure out where the Japanese ace will call home for the next few years, and which teams will be left pivoting to Plan B.

But while Sasaki news could break at any moment, just which team he'll choose remains more or less a mystery. The 23-year-old righty has cast a surprisingly wide net over the past few weeks, taking virtual presentations from two-thirds of the league while meeting in-person with at least seven or eight. And because we don't really know just what matters most to Sasaki as he comes to the States, we don't know which direction he's leaning in. Will the Los Angeles Dodgers add another superstar to their galaxy full of them? Will the San Diego Padres strike a blow in the NL West arms race? Is Sasaki tied to the West Coast, or could the New York Yankees pull off a shocker?

Your guess is as good as ours. Luckily, Baseball America recently published a helpful rundown of all the latest buzz around Sasaki's free agency. Here are the biggest takeaways.

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Roki Sasaki Rumors: Maybe the Dodgers aren't a shoo-in after all?

To be clear: They still might be. BA ranks the Dodgers first on their list of likely landing spots, and their case remains as obvious as it did weeks ago. But if Sasaki already had his heart set on L.A., you'd think word would've gotten out by now, to other teams if not the public at large. BA's Ben Badler, however, offers a note of caution: "Judging from the behavior of other clubs trying to sign Sasaki, those teams aren’t acting that way."

Given the timing of his free agency, any team hoping to sign Sasaki has to significantly rearrange its upcoming international free agent class. That's a lot of hassle, and you'd think that teams wouldn't go through the trouble if it were viewed as a done deal that the righty was going to the Dodgers. But other teams in the mix aren't buying it, which suggests that, to the outside world at least, Sasaki remains undecided.

Roki Sasaki Rumors: Mets no longer appear to be a factor

New York was among the teams that earned an in-person meeting with Sasaki earlier this offseason, but it doesn't appear that the pitcher is considering Queens at the moment. "The Mets would seem to check a lot of boxes," Badler writes, "but they now seem unlikely to sign Sasaki."

It's tough to know how much to read into this exactly. Maybe Sasaki just doesn't want to play on the East Coast, or in New York specifically. But if that were true you'd assume that the Yankees had been told the same thing, which doesn't seem to be the case right now — BA has the Bombers ranked third on their list of likely landing spots, behind only the Dodgers and Padres. Maybe David Stearns, who has agreements in place with some of the top IFAs of this upcoming signing period, isn't willing to risk losing those agreements and has cooled his team's pursuit. Either way, it looks like the Mets will go into 2025 with the same sort of buy-low rotation they had entering 2024 (a rotation that wound up working out just fine).

Roki Sasaki Rumors: Rangers looming as a dark horse

Amid all the talk of Dodgers, Padres and Yankees, another team has gone more or less totally under the radar, despite the fact that they too earned an in-person meeting with Sasaki: the Texas Rangers. But despite a disappointing 2024 season, Badler has Texas No. 4 on his list of potential landing spots, and he makes a surprisingly compelling case.

"The Rangers have been angling to make a run at Sasaki for a long time. Typically one of the most aggressive teams in the international market and in play for the top prospects most years, the Rangers this year are conspicuously absent from the premium players in the 2025 class." 

Keeping their powder dry in case Sasaki decides to choose Texas doesn't necessarily mean anything in a vacuum, beyond the fact that other teams clearly see this as anything but a fait accompli. But it is interesting to note, as is their 2023 World Series title and solid track record of player development. It's still a long shot at this point, but don't rule it out; the DFW metroplex is a big market without quite the same craziness as New York or L.A., with an airport that offers plenty of flights back to Japan.