Read my preview analysis here
Silence from the Padres on the first day of the 2025 international draft means intense conversations with other GM’s regarding acquiring more bonus money for Roki Sasaki. This may be part of a series of trades AJP is about to make. Increments of $250,000 in international bonus money can now be traded. It’s not the money teams are trading, but the rights to spend that money on signing a player. How it is valued we are about to find out. AJP is a GM pioneer like that.
Consider this, if you were Padres GM AJP and wanted Roki Sasaki more than anything this winter, then you would do whatever it took to impress him, right? Money talks, so AJP is looking for 14 chunks of $250K from teams around the league who have international bonus money to spare. He’s letting all the other top talent get signed so every spender is spent, then AJP can get the international bonus money cheaper.
Timing is surely important to his plan, and that’s why it was so critical to keep East Coast Bias off his back while he executes it. AJP has until January 23 to sign Roki Sasaki before his Japanese posting window closes. Remember, the Blue Jays are the kicker team if MLB blows up AJP’s plan, as he brilliantly neutralized East Coast Bias with Laurentian Bias. It was a masterstroke of baseball GM genius.
By my calculations, the Padres & Blue Jays can acquire up to $3.5M, as no more than 60% from the base amount is allowed. The Dodgers can acquire up to $3M extra. If AJP is running this show, and I have postulated that he has from the start, then the Dodgers & Blue Jays are in no man’s land right now. Unable to act in the international draft in the vain hope of signing the ultimate prize: Roki Sasaki.
Every MLB team had a contingency plan to pivot from Sasaki if their bid failed. Some teams pivoted earlier than others. In many ways, the teams that were never in on Sasaki were the best off, as the weren’t distracted by something they weren’t going to get anyway. A Sasaki level of talent is like a drug that has you in the grips of addiction, you can’t quit as it consumes you. If affects your judgment because it’s so emotional.
Whatever the Dodgers Plan B on Sasaki is, it is slipping away as teams sign the top remaining international talent for 2025. This after they left $2.1M unspent last year on an early Sasaki signing gambit, that was as insulting as it was short-sighted. Andrew Friedman is currently in an impossible situation which he partly put himself in. If he keeps waiting, all the other top talent will have signed elsewhere and the Dodgers risk getting shut out of the 2025 international draft. The same dynamic applies to the Blue Jays, and that’s what happens when you go all in & fall short. If the Dodgers/Blue Jays sign another top talent, it’s a concession they aren’t getting Roki Sasaki. What do you do? Tick, tick, tick…
The only MLB team that didn’t have a Plan B on Roki Sasaki was the Padres. With their current payroll situation, this was simply a matter of failure not being an option for AJP and the Padres. You can follow this action from afar by monitoring which teams are signing the top-50 international prospects, and who still has bonus money to spare. Anticipate some complex 3-way deals trying to line up competing interests for the Padres purpose of AJP acquiring bonus money for Roki Sasaki.
Wed 15 Jan 2025 09:32 PM CST
End of Day 1 summary & analysis
Beyond the SDP, LAD & TOR, other WS contending teams that have been noticeably quiet so far are: NYY, BOS, ATL & PHI. Small market teams have feasted on Day 1 of the MLB international draft. On the big market side, the SFG & NYM each signed a top-5 prospect, but it’s the middle & small market teams that are reaping the early benefit of neutralized East Coast Bias.
Kudos to the Rays, Brewers, Twins, Marlins, Cardinals, etc, who are signing talent and using their pool money early & aggressively to improve their organizations. This is their big chance at low-cost future stars. Every draft class has a few guys who come out of nowhere to become impact players or stars. When the top prize is out of reach, a baseball GM must be realistic and find that talent amongst what remains available. That’s what organizational scouting departments are for.
AJ Preller is the type of GM who has the gonads to say to all of them: “I’m getting Sasaki. Who’s gonna deal me the $3.5M in Monopoly money in their bonus pool so I can pay this kid what he deserves?” It’s better to get it all at once and AJP will eventually find a price he likes in that market.
Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins and team president Mark Shapiro are at the helm in a long-shot situation in Toronto. They certainly know they are the kicker in this AJP deal. When do they act? Or do they just wait & see? Would they dare try to acquire $3.5M in bonus pool money? What would it cost them & what are the chances they will get stuck with it?
How about Andrew Friedman who is in a similar (but different) spot with the Dodgers? That $3.5M in funny money isn’t worth a whole lot, but perhaps it’ll return a better prospect from the Padres system than what was available in the 2025 international draft. Who knows? It will be worth a gamble for some team(s), and it only takes one with the unusable money to make a deal.
Too many teams still have most or all their bonus pool money for this not to be on MLB GM’s minds. Most heavyweights have usually signed a top player or two from this top-50 list by the end of day 1. The pickins’ only get slimmer on day two if you don’t hit the jackpot. From #2-50, only twenty prospects remain unsigned as of this writing. #2-7 are signed, with the Mets paying #3 prospect Elian Peña, SS, D.R. $5M. Other prospects around him got ~3$M. The other top prospects left will go for $1M-$2M. Prospects at the bottom end of the top-50 are going for $800,000+.
Beyond that it is a murky free-for-all, and that’s why it’s so important for an eligible international prospect to be on this top-50 MLB list. Most of the top prospects are from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela & Cuba– in that order. Prospects signed for <$10K don’t count towards the team’s bonus pool, and there are more than a few of those guys every year.
Sometimes the easiest answer to a difficult problem is a direct approach. A Padres three-way trade (as posited earlier) probably involves too many moving parts which can drop out, especially when Black Hand influence is in the midst. It allows for too many media leaks also. AJP needs one team (or two at most) to deliver the money for Roki Sasaki. Then he can sign the coveted ace with the proper financial respect, and all other Padres deals in the works can then be made.
Thu 16 Jan 2025 1:05 PM CST
It is now being reported on MLB dot com that the Padres & Dodgers have been calling other teams about acquiring bonus pool money– which is what I postulated yesterday. The Blue Jays apparently haven’t, which makes sense as I’ve outlined already. As a surprise dark hose, the Blue Jays have to be cautious with all these sharks in the water. The Dodgers are the beast of MLB right now, and clearly Andrew Friedman feels they should be all-in on Roki Sasaki to the end.
It’s a calculated risk based on the premise that Roki Sasaki is infinitely more valuable than any other eligible international draft prospect in 2025. It’s also his competitive nature to not give into the Padres on anything, who at this point are the Dodgers fiercest rival. Giving in is the worst sin.
Hypothetically, if the Padres currently have a 70% chance in these sweepstakes, with the Blue Jays at 20%, and the Dodgers 10%; Friedman would still play this same strategy. Andrew Friedman is (at minimum) trying to drive up the price for AJP to obtain the $3.5M he’s seeking from other teams. The Dodgers can only obtain up to $3M more, as they have a smaller original bonus pool.
Remember, this isn’t money that is being traded, it’s the right to spend that money on signing a player. In other words, the $3.5M (or $3M) these teams are seeking is monetary credit that can be traded and turned into bonus money which that team can pay to a new signee. Other MLB teams are now realizing they can possibly get a prospect in return for their bonus money credit, which both the Padres & Dodgers are seeking. Only one team can use this money to sign Sasaki, so it’s a game of blind-mans’ bluff between the Padres & Dodgers GM’s. If AJP suddenly acquires $3.5M, what does Andrew Friedman do? Or vice versa?
What the value of that bonus pool credit will be is what’s being discussed by these GMs, with other GM’s. The longer the international draft goes, the softer the market becomes for acquiring bonus money. The remaining international prospects aren’t as attractive, so acquiring a Padres or Dodgers prospect for Monopoly money gets teams excited to make a deal. As I wrote earlier, the Padres/Dodgers prospect they could receive may be better than anything left in the international draft, plus it won’t cost that team any real money to acquire that prospect. Nothing gets MLB GM’s more aroused than potentially getting something for nothing.
The Red Sox spent their pool money since my last update, so they are eliminated from this group of teams that have been inactive with possibly this trade strategy in mind. There is more than enough surplus bonus pool money around MLB for both the Padres & Dodgers to acquire their max limit, and even the Blue Jays too ($3.5M) if they were inclined. I don’t believe Andrew Friedman or AJP would give up anything close to a top-30 prospect in a trade market this soft, but it’s still unknown.
What I do know is that if the Black Hand of MLB blocks AJP’s pool money deal, he’s already picked out the Blue Jays prospect he wants for the $3.5M bonus money he has available in his bonus pool. AJP is far ahead of his competitors on this, as Andrew Friedman is stalking AJP’s every GM move.
If you want Roki Sasaki, then you have to go the extra mile and then some. Both Friedman & Preller know what is at stake, while knowing everything about how the system works. The Padres have more money to offer and can add more than the Dodgers. That is a fact. The Blue Jays can’t risk this gamble, which is an appraisal.
Between the Padres & Dodgers, one team is going to bust and go home with nothing in the 2025 international draft. Set-backs like that have rarely happened to the Dodgers under Andrew Friedman, as AJP seeks to level the competitive playing field with his arch-rival by doing whatever it takes to get Roki Sasaki ALL his bonus money.
This process is really about more than the money. It’s about doing your job as a GM to take care of a coveted player’s interests. It’s about proving your organization’s worth to that player to earn his loyalty. The team that does that best will win the Sasaki sweepstakes.
Fri 17 Jan 2025 11:52 AM CST
The Black Hand intervenes–again
It has just been reported by MLB that the Padres are out of the Sasaki sweepstakes and the Blue Jays have made a deal with the Guardians for the bonus pool money needed to sign Sasaki. Padres fans have seen this before, as this eerily recalls their pursuit of Shohei Ohtani in 2018. I suspect Dodgers GM Andrew Friedman convinced MLB to not approve any type of Sasaki-Padres deal– and they agreed out of competitive self interest. Clearly, AJP tried to get the bonus money for Roki Sasaki, but apparently no one would trade it to him– because the Black Hand was looming.
Notice that the Dodgers never got that bonus money the were talking so loudly about acquiring in the media for the past two days. Why not? It’s because they knew they were already out, and were doing anything (by hook or crook) to keep the coveted ace from ending up in a Padres uniform. Dirty tricks are part of the Black Hand’s modus operandi, and Andrew Friedman used his big-market clout to block his arch-rival AJP by that means. I have no respect for that. It’s equivalent to losing at something, then asking your parents to intervene on your behalf because you didn’t like the results.
This happened in 2018 when the Red Sox convinced MLB (in a more open & ham-fisted manner) that the Padres didn’t deserve Shohei Ohtani. How else does anyone explain Roki Sasaki to the Blue Jays? A few weeks ago, Toronto wasn’t even on Sasaki’s list, after he had been planning this jump to MLB for years. Once again, the Black Hand has revealed itself, and once again MLB writers & reporters who know better will bury this story. They could get fired & blacklisted for telling the truth here.
For seven years, no one (but me) has explained how Shohei Ohtani got to the Angels, the same way no one will honestly explain how Roki Sasaki is going to end up with the Blue Jays. AJP has been forced to pivot to the remaining international prospects after his Sasaki master plan was nullified by the wave of MLB’s Black Hand. The Padres organization & their fans wish Roki Sasaki the best in Toronto, but they are not only disappointed, they are disgusted by all this.
No, the best team doesn’t always win. That’s because there’s too many behind-the-scene machinations which rig the game in favor of the big market teams and their interests. It’s sad to realize this truth of life through a kid’s game like baseball, but these sports are big business and money rules.
Fri 17 Jan 2025 12:49 PM CST
Conclusion
The lesson of lessons in major sports, business & politics (which all this is) is: You must ALWAYS account for the Black Hand. Read that last sentence a few more times until it has absorbed into your marrow before reading on. I understand I’ve sounded somewhat like a lunatic-fringe conspiracy theorist at times as the Black Hand has been a leitmotif during my writings on the Sasaki Affair. But now that story has been written (largely by me), and it has unfolded in the context I provided beforehand, giving the reader everything necessary to understand this murky process, I feel it is time for me to take my leave.
Once again, it was NEVER an open contest among 30 MLB peer competitors. It is instead a monopoly capitalist rigged playing field. That is the Black Hand. Exposing that is more important to this writer than who gets Roki Sasaki. I love baseball, but it’s just a tool in life, and that’s the difference between me; and MLB writers such as Jon Morosi, Ken Rosenthal, Jeff Passan, etc, who have been reading & sharing me during the Sasaki Affair. My message to all of them is. “Tell the fans the whole truth– for a change… and fuck Buster Olney.”
In this spirit of sportsmanship, there are no hard feelings towards Roki Sasaki from Padres fans– particularly this one. This Padres fan holds those who are truly accountable to blame. The Black Hand hates exposure above all else, and this is how to strike back.
That’s what made my 2018 Ohtani Affair coverage so valuable, and why MLB has hidden its facts since. I believe my artist name was heatedly discussed at the MLB owners meeting held in Orlando, FL shortly after that murky 2018 international affair. My MLB account (handle: Ric Size) was deactivated and commenting became near impossible for me, until MLB killed all the team message boards later that year.
That’s an event that REALLY affected baseball fans and was never reported in the mass media, due to the Black Hand. If allowed to remain in the murky shadows, the Black Hand becomes the all-powerful nefarious force which violently consumes us all. In Trotskyist Marxist terms based on dialectical materialism, the Black Hand is imperialist capitalism.
Postscript
It was later announced in the day that Roki Sasaki chose the Dodgers. No surprise there either, which team would you rather play for? The Blue Jays were AJP’s kicker if his deal went bad, which it did, but it was Roki Sasaki’s choice to make. Sasaki made the ‘smart choice’ according to baseball insiders. I believe in his heart that he (& Shohei Ohtani in 2018) wanted to be in a Padres uniform, but elite athletic talent can’t resist the Black Hand as it is only a pawn in this game. Roki Sasaki understands that much better now and I hope those who are reading me do too.
The Dodgers are giving Roki Sasaki a $6.5M signing bonus. To get to $6.5M, the Dodgers must acquire an additional $1,353,800 in bonus pool money by next Thursday, January 23– an impossible task for AJP, but easy living for the Dodgers. As proof of favorable bias, the Dodgers get to announce the deal before they even have the money, something the Padres & Blue Jays would never be allowed to do by MLB.
After the first two days, AJP was unable to find another MLB team willing to trade him any Monopoly money to increase the Padres bonus pool for Sasaki and that was a clear signal from the Black Hand. Note that this Dodgers $6.5 is slightly more than the Padres had available at $6.2M. An appearance of legitimacy is what counts here.
Since the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy in 2023, the Padres are now one of 7 (possibly 9) teams that broadcast through MLB in 2025. The significance of that is if MLB doesn’t want Roki Sasaki in San Diego, then MLB can coerce Padres ownership into yielding by threatening their broadcast deal, etc– meaning their revenue streams. I have a sense that when this ‘business proposition’ was presented to Padres ownership sometime last night, the decision was for AJP to drop his Sasaki pursuit for the ‘good of the organization’.
It’s this type of blackmail, coercion, tampering, collusion, or whatever else you want to call it, that sent Roki Sasaki to the Dodgers. It’s exactly this type of ownership dirty dealing & league interference that turns off fans. The Padres will obviously have no comment on any of this. Just business as usual for MLB.
Over & Out
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