Where Cubs stand in Roki Sasaki pursuit, according to latest report
As the calendar creeps closer to January 15, the rumors circulating around prized Japanese free agent Roki Sasaki will only continue to heat up.
The latest report, this from Jim Bowden of the Athletic, counts the Cubs as one of the teams still in on the 23-year-old pitcher.
All the teams Bowden listed have reportedly met with Sasaki and his agent Joel Wolfe of Wasserman. Those initial meetings were around 2 hours in length and Sasaki insisted that every team have a “level playing field,” Wolfe said. No current players attended, and all the meetings took place at the Wasserman offices in Los Angeles.
[MORE: Why Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki chose now to come to Major League Baseball]
“I think that the teams that met with him would tell you he was engaged, he asked questions — and he gave every team something that he called a homework assignment, the team that he was going to meet with,” Wolfe told reporters earlier this week. “And I think it was a great opportunity for the teams to really show what they specialize in.
“Without giving the actual details of what that assignment was, every team got that very same assignment, and it enabled them to show how they can analyze and communicate information with him and really showed where he was coming from in analyzing and creating his selection criteria in looking at teams.”
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The next steps for Sasaki aren’t entirely clear, but Wolfe said it was possible that Sasaki could visit cities of the teams still in the mix. Sasaki is being posted as a minor league free agent, meaning he can’t sign until January 15 and his 45-day posting window ends January 23.
“Roki is by no means a finished product. He knows it, and the teams know it. He’s incredibly talented; we all know that,” Wolfe said. “But he is a guy that wants to be great. He’s not coming here just to be rich or get a huge contract. He wants to be great. He wants to be one of the greatest ever. I see that now, and he’s articulated it.
“And to be that, he knows he has to challenge himself.”