Hot Stove Update: Roki Is Not Coming To The Giants

The tea leaves did not look good for awhile and today we formally hear the Giants are not one of the teams Roki Sasaki RHP is considering signing with.  He reportedly also informed the Yankees, Rangers, and Rays they are out of the running.  That seems to narrow it down to the BJ's, The Hated Ones and that other team from SoCal.  OK, let's stop kidding ourselves.  It's going to be the Dodgers and poo on them!  It seems MLB has jumped in the same boat as the NBA where players can collude and create super-teams.  

TBH, the whole Sasaki situation has been weird from the beginning.  First of all he's already an established star in Japan but somehow is considered an amateur international free agent subject to the bonus pool limits which apparently don't matter to him because he just wants to play or has enough endorsement income to not need the bonus money.  Except the Dodgers and Padres are reportedly bailing on their longstanding agreements with their "normal" international prospects and telling them they are free to seek other deals or wait until next signing period.  So maybe the money is not as irrelevant to Roki as he led us to believe?  Which put the Giants in a tough position.

The Giants are reported to have a longstanding agreement in place to sign the consensus #1 international prospect(not named Roki Sasaki), Josuar Gonzalez SS, as well as two other highly regarded prospects who collectively are expected to take up all but about $800 K of their bonus pool.  The Giants have also worked very hard for almost 10 years to build up their relationships with international trainers or "buscones" who broker these deals and finally seem to have a steady stream of serious international prospects on a yearly basis.  In a vacuum, yes, Sasaki is a player you would sacrifice the rest of your international signing class to acquire but what about those longterm relationships with the "buscones" and their reputation with the Latin American talent pool?  Through the whole process, the Giants were reported to be determined to honor the commitments they had in place while still hoping to sign Sasaki.  Is Sasaki so narcissistic he wants teams to abandon those commitments as a sign of commitment to him?.....or maybe he really does need the bonus money after all?  I am confused!

Then there was the weird "homework assignment" he gave the reported finalists to write up a personalized development plan for him.  Like what?  Buster Posey seemed pretty enthused about the prospect of signing Sasaki but he is also very old school and I could easily see him looking at that "homework assignment" and saying F this BS and not responding or walking away.  Or in Buster's own immortal words, "not havin' it!"  We will probably never know what really happened or how seriously the Giants were or were not a possible destination for him but I would love to see the look on Buster's face when he heard about that "homework assignment.".  

So chins up, Giants fans.  In all probability Roki was never coming to us and if the price was to bail on Josuar Gonzalez and the rest of their international commitments I am OK with that.  Although Bobby Evans was the GM who started building up the international scouting effort, FZ continued it and that hard work is starting to pay off and will start paying dividends at the MLB level in just a few years.