The Toronto Blue Jays failed badly in their actual pitch, but they gave Roki Sasaki a parting gift.

MLB Rumors: The Toronto Blue Jays failed badly in their actual pitch, but they gave Roki Sasaki a parting gift.

Roki Sasaki signed a contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers after the Toronot Blue Jays failed to sign him. They did, however, provide Sasaki with some helpful information.

For those of us in the media, Roki Sasaki's signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers should have been expected. The great majority of us, as well as a number of MLB teams, were duped by Sasaki and his agent Joel Wolfe into believing that Sasaki was unconcerned with the size of the market, its proximity to Japan, or the fact that two of his teammates on the Japan WBC team, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani, were recruiting him to Los Angeles.

We simply adore a good story, and the Dodgers were always a lock.

Sasaki did, however, gain a lot from traveling around and taking pitches from other Major League Baseball teams. The Toronto Blue Jays have direct knowledge of this. Despite finishing in second place for MLB starters like Juan Soto, Shohei Ohtani, Sasaki, and others over the past few years, the hapless Jays and Ross Atkins always give it their all; after all, what else are they expected to do? Some of the biggest names in the sport have approached them, but only a select few are willing to compete north of the border. I'm proud of them for that.

I don't for the following. The 23-year-old Sasaki received some of the Blue Jays' most important scouting information during their talks with him, including the reason behind his fastball's decrease from the previous campaign. I'll let Jeff Passan of ESPN explain the procedure:

Sasaki was thrilled with Toronto's response to a pressing query: What caused his sizzling fastball to lose velocity in 2024? Sam Greene, the Blue Jays' assistant pitching coach, and Frank Herrmann, a baseball operations staffer who had pitched in the major leagues and was Sasaki's teammate with the Chiba Lotte Marines, provided an explanation that combined data, mechanics, and feel to help them in their pursuit.

Sasaki stayed in Toronto for several days, and the Blue Jays were assured when he left," Passan wrote.

The moment Sasaki was out of their line of sight, that confidence vanished. Despite their spectacular presentation, the Blue Jays essentially gave Sasaki the cheat codes for his own video game before he brought it to his friend's house. Sasaki will play for the Dodgers and may improve even more as a result of the information Toronto voluntarily gave him.