MLB Conducted Thorough Investigation of Roki Sasaki Process Before He Signed With Dodgers
Long before Roki Sasaki officially agreed to join the Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball felt compelled to investigate the process.
More news: Dodgers Officially Sign Roki Sasaki, Announce Details on Introductory Press Conference
A league official confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that MLB conducted an investigation before approving Sasaki’s posting to “ensure the protocol agreement had been followed.” Additionally, a source familiar with the situation, speaking anonymously to the Times, stated that the league interviewed “numerous parties” during the probe but found no evidence to support the rumors.
It doesn’t help when baseball personalities like Jim Bowden, former general manager of the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals who currently writes for The Athletic, publicly encouraged the league to investigate.
“I think you’re going to find there’s going to be multiple teams that are going to ask the commissioner’s office to investigate this particular signing,” Jim Bowden, formerly the GM of the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals and currently an analyst with CBS Sports and The Athletic, told Foul Territory. “There were several front offices that believed there was a pre-cut deal between the Dodgers and Roki Sasaki before this process started.”
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Former major league players like Dallas Keuchel, who won the 2017 World Series with the Houston Astros, also publicly hinted that an agreement between the Dodgers and Sasaki was in place heading into the offseason.
“I heard some rumblings about a done deal with the Dodgers — you know, having a plan for him,” former Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel, a teammate of Sasaki’s in Japan last season, told the New York Post in November.
Despite the speculation from former players, GMs, and fans, the league found that the Dodgers didn’t do anything wrong. Every team that was interested in Sasaki had the opportunity to put a presentation together and submit it for him and his team to review. The playing field was level for all 20 teams that reached out.
“There were some accusations, allegations, all of them false, made about predetermined deals, things like that,” Sasaki’s agent Joel Wolfe said at the Winter Meetings. “However, MLB rightly wanted to make sure this was going to be a fair and level playing field for everyone. So they did their due diligence and interviewed numerous parties ahead of time to make sure that was the case. And they wanted to make sure that Roki would most likely — while he would have the opportunity to sign in ‘24 — give himself the best opportunity to get the best deal.”
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Photo Credit: Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports
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