Janaury 15th is a day many people across the league have had circled on their calendars: the first day of the 2025 international free-agent signing period. Today is the day when every club’s bonus pool resets and the newest crop of international players are eligible to sign with a respective big league club. Handshake deals can now be transformed into paper contracts; a system that has been used for years as clubs identify and sign talented players from outside the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

This year, the hottest player on the international scene is right-hander Roki Sasaki, a right-handed pitcher who has spent the last four seasons with the Chiba Lotte Marines. At 23 years old with four years under his belt, Sasaki falls under the amateur international free agency guidelines set between Nippon Professional Baseball, the top league in Japan, and Major League Baseball. He won’t rake in the millions like Yoshinobu Yamamoto did last winter with the Dodgers, he falls into the same category as Shohei Ohtani when he signed with the Angels for $2.315 million.

The Marines posted Sasaki during the Winter Meetings back in mid-December and the move was calculated in nature, as it overlapped with the 2025 international signing period beginning today. He can sign with any Major League team until January 23rd at 5:00 pm EST. He will earn a few more million compared to if he had signed before today, as it would have fallen into the 2024 international period when teams had far fewer monies to pony up. Regardless, Sasaki is making the jump years before he could potentially cash in, showing his intentions to play on the biggest stage as early as possible.

There’s a lot to like about Sasaki, which is why over 20 teams at least spoke to the right-hander in some capacity. Not every team got a chance to make their pitch in person, but given the low price tag and the years of control that will follow, it’s easy to see why he had a lot of suitors. Across four seasons in the Eastern League, Sasaki has posted a 2.10 ERA across 64 games and 394 2/3 innings, striking out opposing hitters at an 11.5 K/9 rate. He holds his command well, authoring a 2.0 BB/9 since joining the Marines and has held opposing hitters to a 6.0 H/9 with a tremendous 0.894 WHIP. Sasaki features a fastball that sits in the upper 90s and can break the tripled digit mark while also featuring a splitter and a slider in his arsenal. He won the World Baseball Classic with Japan in 2023 and has a perfect game under his belt (April 10, 2022) while also earning two NPB All-Star nominations and setting the NPB record for the most strikeouts in a single game (19).

As time moved on, teams were informed that they were no longer in the running: the Yankees, Rangers, Cubs, and Giants among them. This past weekend, it was revealed that there were three front runners in the process: the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres, who have been the favourites right from the get-go, and the Toronto Blue Jays, who reportedly hosted the right-hander this past week in Toronto.

The Blue Jays are no stranger when it comes to being attached to some of the game’s biggest free agents. The club pursued Shohei Ohtani last winter before he signed with the Dodgers and the club was also in the running for Juan Soto and Corbin Burnes this winter before they signed with the Mets and the Diamondbacks respectively. Toronto has been a ‘bridesmaid and not a bride’ in these situations more times than one can recall in the past few years so naturally, fans are a bit skeptical if the club can pull it off this time around with Sasaki.

The fact that the Blue Jays hosted Sasaki in Toronto is intriguing, mostly because it means that there is likely genuine interest from his camp to consider Toronto as a legitimate landing spot. Sasaki wasn’t going to waste his time visiting the Rogers Centre and meeting with the staff in person this late in the process if he wasn’t interested, it’s not worth it to entertain the club in that manner if he wasn’t serious about it.

That being said, Toronto is in a unique situation when it comes to the things Sasaki is looking for. His agent, Joel Wolfe, outlined that Sasaki is the one ‘calling the shots’ and explained his client wanted to come to the MLB badly, hence why he didn’t wait a few years for a more lucrative paycheck.

For Toronto, the club is in the midst of a bit of a crossroads. The front office does not have some of their top talent signed to long-term deals like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette and numerous core members are free agent eligible over the next few seasons. As well, the club has yet to address some concerns on the roster this winter such as adding a power bat to the lineup, although the team has made strides in improving their bullpen and shoring up second base, while it appears the Blue Jays hope Sasaki is the one to address their need for another arm in the rotation.

While some points may not favour the Blue Jays in this conversation, there are some areas where the club does excel.

For one, the city of Toronto is diverse and has widely been regarded as a great city by opposing players and teams, with former Blue Jays southpaw Yusei Kikuchi cementing idea this when he interviewed with the Toronto Sun during the 2023/2024 offseason. There’s also the argument that you get to represent a whole nation rather than just one city, which has varying degrees of success depending on the player.

As well, the one area the Blue Jays have found lots of success in is taking established arms and making them better.

While you can knock on the Jays’ development of minor league pitchers given their lack of arms in the big leagues, the Blue Jays have found a ton of success with either taking free agents and moulding them into better pitchers than when they found them and their success stories speak for themselves. Steven Matz and Ross Stripling are two prime examples and Bowden Francis made immense strides to finish out the 2024 campaign.

The club traded for a struggling Robbie Ray during the 2020 campaign, re-signed him for the 2021 season, and turned him into the AL Cy Young winner that year. He, Hyun Jin Ryu (2020), Alek Manoah (2022), and Kevin Gausman (2023) have all been finalists for the award and this past winter was the first time in five years that a Blue Jay isn’t in the final three. That’s a pretty strong track record to try and convince an established player like Sasaki that there is room for development and improvement if you sign with the Jays.

At the end of the day, all signs continue to point that the Japanese product will be taking his talents to California.

The Dodgers have reportedly had a getting a second meeting with him already, potentially making the club that much more dangerous should he sign there, while San Diego boasts Yu Darvish, who has a personal connection with the free agent as well as the team being one that continues to pique his interest. The Blue Jays appear to be on the outside looking in but stranger things have happened and the club does have some track record success with signing higher profile free agents in recent memory outside of last winter (and currently right now). Money isn’t the driving factor in this free-agent conversation given the bonus pool restrictions, which have their own set of pros and cons for the Jays.

All Blue Jays fans can do is wait, as it appears that Sasaki will likely be making his decision sometime this weekend before next Thursday’s deadline. It’s fair to say that the fanbase is skeptical that Ross Atkins and co. can land the Japanese superstar, mostly because they are used to the song and dance of Ohtani and Soto before, but the Jays are at least getting up and still swinging. While that may not count for anything should he sign elsewhere, if the Blue Jays front office can convince Roki Sasaki to take his talents North of the border, the fan base’s mood on the front office could turn into a positive rather quickly, especially if the club continues to be active before February 18th.