SF Giants have been informed they will not be getting Roki Sasaki

The SF Giants have been informed that top international prospect Roki Sasaki will not be coming to San Francisco. The news does not come as a huge shock, but it is yet another instance of a free agent not selecting the Giants.

This news comes via Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle who reported on X that Giants general manager Zack Minasian told reporters that Sasaki will not be joining the Giants:

SF Giants lose out on Roki Sasaki

Sasaki is a very highly touted pitcher out of Japan. His career ERA in Japan is 2.02 and he has a very impressive strikeout rate, punching out over 11 batters per nine innings on average in his career.

He features a high velocity fastball and a very impressive splitter and has the raw stuff to be a potential ace in an MLB rotation. Of course, that will not be as a member of the Giants.

Other teams involved in the pursuit for Sasaki are the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. That would be disastrous for the Giants if either team is able to land him because it would just add to an already stacked NL West.

Both teams may have had an advantage because Yu Darvish is in San Diego and was reportedly Sasaki's hero growing up. The Dodgers also have Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto who Sasaki is familiar with from the World Baseball Classic.

As our own Jeff Young noted, the Giants are likely done making additions to their rotation after the Justin Verlander signing. Sasaki was probably the only other player they would have entertained adding to their rotation.

We will now have to see if the Giants try to make a big splash on offense by adding a slugger like Pete Alonso or Anthony Santander. Neither move seems all that likely given the team's desire to cut payroll and the fact that either signing would cost them more draft picks because both players declined a qualifying offer from their respective clubs.

At the very least, the Giants seem likely have an interesting consolation prize after missing out on Sasaki because they are favored to sign the second-best international free agent prospect after Sasaki, Josuar De Jesus Gonzalez out of the Dominican Republic.

Nonetheless, it seems like the Giants may be done making large moves while the NL West seems likely to get stronger. This is dispiriting but not all that surprising. The Giants always seemed like a longshot to land Sasaki so this will not come as too much of a shock to the organization or the fans. That makes it sting a little less, but it is still annoying that the Giants keep losing out on these premier players.