Details from initial Roki Sasaki meetings neutered key Dodgers advantage

After the Dodgers re-signed Teoscar Hernández last Friday, they finally got their guy, and it seemed like their last 't' was crossed and 'i' was dotted. Apart from a potential extra bullpen or bench addition, LA's roster is one of the most complete in baseball. Most of their 2025 lineup will remain the same, and the rotation added a two-time Cy Young winner and will welcome back three more starters at various points through the season.

However, there's still one more question mark: someone who the Dodgers would take in a heartbeat even if it means overcrowding the rotation. LA got one of the four most sought-after starters on the market in Blake Snell, and they'll do anything they can to get Roki Sasaki, too.

Sasaki was posted during Winter Meetings and has a 45-day window to sign, but he can't finalize a deal until Jan. 15, when the international signing period starts up again. He's reportedly returned to Japan to go over all of his options after a busy few weeks speaking with teams in the States, but the Dodgers were one of just a few interested teams to get a sit-down meeting with him.

However, Sasaki — who seems to be keeping an exacting hand on how his free agency is playing out — requested that teams didn't bring players to meetings, which probably shot a huge part of the Dodgers' strategy in the foot.

Roki Sasaki requested teams, including Dodgers, not bring players to initial meetings

Sasaki's agent Joel Wolfe suggested during Winter Meetings that Sasaki wouldn't necessarily take the presence of Japanese players on a team to be a major plus, but stars wooing free agents has become a time-honored tradition across the league, and it just so happens that two of the Dodgers' stars were teammates with Sasaki during the World Baseball Classic.

Despite Wolfe's claim that his client might not care about reuniting with Japanese teammates, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Yu Darvish's presences on the Dodgers and Padres, who are also still widely thought of as the frontrunners, should be able to make some kind of emotional appeal to Sasaki.

It's somewhat admirable that he specifically asked that not come into account during his first, ground-laying meetings, as he clearly just wants to know first and foremost where he'll be able to succeed best, but it's a reminder that the Dodgers have more of an uphill battle to fight for him than was initially expected.