MLB.com's 'bold prediction' for Dodgers might not actually be so far-fetched

Munetaka Murakami, Kazuma Okamoto, and Tatsuya Imai are the three big Japanese free agents coming over to MLB this offseason. All have officially been posted, opening up 45-day windows to sign with a major league team. Murakami's closes first at 2 PM PST on Dec. 22.

The Dodgers, inevitably, have been linked to all of them, even if most of the links have simply been in the vein of, "The Dodgers have a lot of Japanese players; it makes sense that they would get more."

Anthony Castrovince of MLB.com, however, is unconvinced it's as inevitable as some might think. One of his "bold predictions" for the offseason is the Dodgers getting none of the available Japanese free agents.

He cites the rest of baseball's desire to move more into the Japanese market and predicts Murakami will go to the Yankees (who he's already been connected to), Imai will go to the Cubs (he's already said he wants nothing more than to beat the Dodgers), and Okamoto will go to the...Pirates? Okay, that one's a little harder to believe.

While Castrovince's exact landing spots could turn out to be a little off the mark, the Dodgers not signing any of Murakami, Okamoto, Imai, and Takahashi isn't totally unbelievable.

MLB.com predicts the Dodgers won't sign any of the major Japanese free agents this offseason

The reasoning, beyond the rest of the league's goal to be more desirable to top talent coming over from Japan, is pretty simple: the Dodgers don't have room for any of these players.

You could maybe make an argument for Murakami and Okamoto, both position players, but signing one or both of them would mean significantly less playing time for either Freddie Freeman or Max Muncy. Freeman is expected to get more regular days off and Muncy's only making $10 million, but it's hard to believe that the Dodgers would pay two free agents top dollar only to stick them in bench or platoon roles for a year.

The rotation is full, and it's the best in baseball, so that counts Imai out — even if he wasn't already so adamant that he doesn't want to play for the Dodgers. LA already has three starters on the outside looking in (Emmet Sheehan, River Ryan, and Gavin Stone), and they could elevate any one of them as a sixth starter.

The Dodgers should never been counted out, but we wouldn't be surprised if this particular prediction actually comes true.