A few more details have emerged about Roki Sasaki’s process to come to MLB

Yes, I’m saying the Cubs have a chance.

The most sought-after free agent this winter might be a guy who won’t cost teams very much.

That, of course, is start Japanese righthander Roki Sasaki, who was posted Dec. 9 by his NPB team, the Chiba Lotte Marines. That opened a 45-day window in which Sasaki can negotiate with MLB teams, who can only sign him as an international amateur, using only the money from their international bonus pools. This offseason, those pools reset on Jan. 15, so I wouldn’t expect Sasaki to sign before then. The 45-day period expires Jan. 23.

Yesterday, Sasaki’s agent Joel Wolfe of the Wasserman Group (who also represents Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki) gave a few details of the process to MLB.com. I’m going to post key portions of the article there by Sonja Chen and then have comments.

The efforts to “preserve the integrity of the meeting process,” Wolfe said, have included limiting every meeting to the same amount of time — under two hours — and having teams meet with them at Wasserman’s office in Los Angeles.

Sasaki even requested that no players be present at any initial meetings.

“He wanted to make sure that everything was a fair and level playing field, both for his own decision-making process and for the teams,” said Wolfe, speaking to reporters on a Zoom webinar on Monday night.

COMMENT: This is an excellent way to handle things. It does seem like Sasaki has an open mind, and isn’t just automatically going to choose the Dodgers.

Twenty teams sent in presentations when Sasaki was posted, and Wolfe noted that it was clear that some clubs had been working on their materials long before the Marines announced their intention to post Sasaki in early November.

Those presentation materials varied widely, including PowerPoint presentations, short films and books. There were also some video messages from players, one way to circumvent the “no players allowed” rule for meetings.

“It was like the Roki film festival,” Wolfe said.

Sasaki narrowed down the list from there. Wolfe did not name any teams that Sasaki has met with, or even the number of teams still in the running. According to reports, Sasaki has met with six clubs: the Cubs, Dodgers, Giants, Mets, Rangers and Yankees.

COMMENT: It’s unclear from the article whether Sasaki will meet with more than just these six teams. The article notes that Sasaki has now returned to Japan to “mull things over” and could “begin eliminating teams from consideration,” per the article. Also interesting is that the Padres, who had been mentioned previously as a top contender for Sasaki and who have had players from Japan and other Asian countries play for them, did not get an initial meeting with Sasaki.

One way that Sasaki decided to evaluate teams was by giving those he met with a “homework assignment.”

“Without giving the actual details of what that assignment was,” Wolfe said, “every team got that very same assignment, and it enabled them to show how they can analyze and communicate information with him, and really showed where he was coming from in analyzing and creating his selection criteria, in looking at different teams.”

Wolfe named pitching development as one area Sasaki was specifically interested in, also noting that they had had conversations about market size, location, team success and whether a team already has Japanese players.

COMMENT: This, again, is an excellent way to approach things. From a Cubs standpoint, they would seem to have at least two of those things in their favor: pitching development and Japanese players. The latter, of course, is both players currently on the team (Suzuki and Shōta Imanaga) and the fact that the Cubs have a long record of signing Japanese players going back to Kosuke Fukudome in 2008. Of course, the other teams noted as having met with Sasaki also have had Japanese players on their rosters, and in the case of the Dodgers, two of the best in Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Per baseball-reference.com, 81 men born in Japan have played in MLB, though 10 of those were born there, likely due to their non-Japanese fathers being in military service. and grew up in either the USA or Australia (that group includes Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, whose mother is Japanese). Of the 71 others, 10 have played for the Cubs, so they have significant experience with players from Japan and would seem to have a good infrastructure to support them. In November, Cubs President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer said this about the Cubs and Japanese players:

Personally, I think the Cubs have a very good chance of being the team Sasaki chooses. Why do I think that? All of the above, plus just a hunch, no inside info. Landing Sasaki would make this Cubs offseason a great success.

Let’s hope it happens.