Were the SF Giants just a pawn in the Roki Sasaki charade?

Well, it happened. Roki Sasaki went to the Los Angeles Dodgers. While this outcome is not surprising at all, it is a bit annoying that it feels like the SF Giants were nothing but a pawn in Sasaki’s charade that ultimately led to him going to LA.

This is not an unfamiliar feeling for Giants fans. It is not too dissimilar from how it felt when Aaron Judge signed with the New York Yankees after a long drawn out process where it seemed like the Giants had a real shot to sign him when in reality he was just using the Giants as leverage to get the Yankees to increase their offer.

Of course, with the Sasaki sweepstakes it never felt like the Giants had a true chance. Sure, they were rumored as a team that had met with Sasaki and may have had a sliver of a chance, but Giants fans have been burned too many times to fall for that. 

SF Giants were used yet again, this time by Roki Sasaki

Yet, with this long process where Sasaki’s agent Joel Wolfe offered false bromides about how this was an open process and how Sasaki may benefit from being with a smaller market team, it sort of feels like no team had a real shot except for the Dodgers.

This is not to say there was outright collusion or any sort of rule breaking, but the notion that this was an open process where Sasaki was going into it as a blank slate was always silly. Wolfe and Sasaki’s camp, as well as the Dodgers, had to try to create the impression that this was not a predetermined process. Yet, it feels like that is exactly what it was.

Of course, one cannot blame Sasaki for joining the Dodgers. They have the most talented roster in baseball, are fresh off of buying a World Series, and have two incredibly good Japanese players in Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani. It’s basically a perfect situation for Sasaki.

Yet, that does not change the fact that it feels like the Giants were used. So were the San Diego Padres and Toronto Blue Jays for that matter. It feels like Sasaki has known where he was going to go for a long time.

While it hurts, as president of baseball operations Buster Posey said recently, there is only one way for the Giants to become a more desirable destination for premier free agents and that is to become a consistent winner. It will not be an easy task, but if the Giants can become a perennial playoff team then they will have a much better chance of landing these free agents.

For now though, the Dodgers have added yet another new weapon to their ever-growing Evil Empire. Los Angeles has a Death Star, but maybe just maybe Buster Posey can be Luke Skywalker for the Giants and assemble a roster that can be the proton torpedo which will destroy the Death Star. It is getting old feeling like the Giants are just being used, but if they start to win perhaps that feeling will go away.