Roki Sasaki’s free agency will always be remembered as if no team but the Los Angeles Dodgers had a chance, but there was one little window on Friday where it seemed like the Toronto Blue Jays were up to something.
At 11:30 a.m. ET, the Blue Jays announced they had acquired Cleveland Guardians outfield Myles Straw, cash and international bonus pool money in exchange for a player to be named later or cash.
One its face, the trade made little sense. Straw is one of those players who essentially has negative value. The 30-year-old is a brilliant fielder, but an anemic bat has kept him from becoming an MLB regular, to the point he spent all of last season at Triple-A, where he posted a .651 OPS. And because of an ill-advised five-year deal the Guardians gave him, he’s still owed $13.8 million, plus the money it takes to buy out his club options for 2026 and 2027.
The Guardians at least sent $3.75 million to help offset Straw’s deal, but that still meant the Blue Jays were still agreeing to pay $11 million for a no-bat, all-glove player, a player type of which they already had plenty.
The only way it could possibly make sense was if the $2 million the Jays acquired would be put to use. Namely by sweetening the pot for Sasaki, who was bound by international free agent rules to receive a bonus representing a fraction of his true value. The trade expanded the Jays’ international pool to roughly $8.3 million.
No one knew anything for sure outside Sasaki’s camp (and perhaps the Dodgers front office, if some people are to be believed), but one theory worked out like this:
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The Blue Jays executed a trade that made no sense without Sasaki
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The Blue Jays wouldn’t make a trade like that without having a deal with Sasaki
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The Blue Jays must have a deal brewing with Sasaki
That would have made sense, if the Blue Jays operated like a normal team. Instead, Sasaki announced he was signing with the Dodgers hours later, leaving a massive question of what exactly was Toronto doing.
On Saturday, The Athletic answered that question by reporting that the Blue Jays made the trade with no go-ahead from Sasaki. Instead, they “seemed determined to prove to Sasaki they were willing to do everything possible to land him” after sensing the Dodgers were the favorites.
Rival executives did not think highly of how the team pulled it off:
It was a dubious strategy, especially without a deal in place, prompting one rival executive to say, “My phone has been blowing up all day with ‘wtf Jays.’” An executive still involved in the process took note of the Blue Jays adding to the pool of money they could offer Sasaki, but took some solace in the fact that Wolfe had given the remaining clubs similar instructions. But the Blue Jays’ motivation was clear: They hoped that their push for Sasaki would end differently from their failed runs at Ohtani and Juan Soto, which only teased the fan base and further framed the franchise as perpetual runners-up.
That Shohei Ohtani jet incident really left a mark on that franchise.
The Athletic reports the other two finalists, the Dodgers and San Diego Padres, both had their own deals lined up, but — and this is critical — did not pull the trigger until they were told Sasaki was signing with them. San Diego was reportedly prepared to make a trade to max out their bonus pool to the maximum 160%, while the Dodgers ended up executing deals with the Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnati Reds to acquire a few extra million dollars to increase their bonus pool, at the expense of minor prospects.
If you evaluate each of the prospects the Dodgers sent away — outfielders Dylan Campbell and Arnaldo Lantigua — as worth less than $11 million, the Dodgers somehow ended up making only the second- and third-most costly trades to accommodate Sasaki. Because, and this really needs to be repeated to be grasped, the Blue Jays traded for an $11 million replacement-level player just to convince a guy they wanted him. It’s the baseball equivalent of getting a tattoo to convince someone you’re serious about dating them.
It’s one thing to miss out on Ohtani or Juan Soto. It’s another thing to pay for the privilege, which is what Toronto did this time. We shouldn’t rule out Straw having a bounceback year in the Toronto outfield this year, but there’s no denying he landed in Toronto by misadventure.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers were reported to put on a full-court press at their second, more in-depth meeting with Sasaki, with appearances by Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, Will Smith, Tommy Edman, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, general manager Brandon Games and minority owner Magic Johnson, who gave Sasaki, apparently a big basketball fan, a signed jersey.
The group reportedly adjourned to part-owner Peter Guber’s home in Bel Air, where a private chef served sushi while the conversation continued. Not long before Sasaki announced his decision, Ohtani reported to team brass via text message, saying “We got him.”
An overarching narrative around the whole Sasaki situation was how different the Dodgers are from every other team, and that apparently extended to the nuts and bolts of the process as well.
