Tom Krasovic: Padres poised to make strong sales pitch to Japanese ace Roki Sasaki

SAN DIEGO — When it comes to value, no player the Padres will pursue this offseason matches Roki Sasaki.

The Japanese ace and 2023 World Baseball Classic star stands as one of the sport’s best pitchers, yet he’ll cost mere pennies on the dollars relative to the likely returns he’ll generate. For several years, Sasaki’s salary will land near MLB’s minimum to go with a modest signing bonus. Because he’s so eager to pitch in the United States, Sasaki has chosen to forgo a contract comparable to the $325 million Yoshinobu Yamamoto got from the Dodgers last winter.

Sasaki’s MLB performances will attract millions of viewers, enabling his team to negotiate lucrative business deals ahead of his first season.

If Sasaki chooses them, the Padres would boast a trio of young stars that few other teams could match: Fernando Tatis Jr., who’ll turn 26 in January; Sasaki, who turned 23 this month and threw 21 pitches clocked at 101 mph or faster in the World Baseball Classic; and Jackson Merrill, the 21-year-old coming off one of the finest rookie seasons in Padres season. Also, Padres minor-league shortstop Leodalis De Vries, 18, will appear on MLB top-20 lists next spring.

So, which team will Sasaki choose?

I wouldn’t presume to guess.

Such is the mystery of Sasaki that it can’t be assumed that any of the coming sales pitches he receives will determine which club he chooses.

“We just don’t know his preferences,” MLB Network’s Tom Verducci, a longtime baseball journalist, wrote in Sports Illustrated.

Impressive try

Whether or not Sasaki chooses them, the Padres have franchise strengths that any player would find impressive.

Start with the fun of going to the ballpark for 81 games. The ballpark atmosphere in downtown San Diego stands among the sport’s best: crowds the past three seasons ranged on average from 36,800 to 41,100 per game as the Padres finished fifth, second and third of the 30 clubs in home attendance. In all three years, the Padres outdrew several big-market teams, including the New York Mets and Houston Astros. They topped the Yankees each of the past two years.

Crowd enthusiasm is tougher to quantify. But as the region’s only major sports team, the Padres attract royal treatment from home crowds.

“Very underrated place,” Atlanta Braves ace Chris Sale, an eight-time All-Star who won a World Series with the 2018 Boston Red Sox, said of San Diego’s ballpark atmosphere this past July.

Having developed run prevention into a reliable strength, the Padres will give any prospective pitcher something to consider. They’ve finished 10th, second and 10th in run prevention under pitching coach Ruben Niebla, who recently signed a long-term extension.

The Padres are projected by most oddsmakers to be among the top eight candidates to win the 2025 World Series title. They’ve advanced to two of past three postseasons, winning a total of three playoff series.

It’s another example of Peter Seidler’s legacy that the Padres can make a pitch to the likes of Sasaki that would rate as impressive by most objective standards.

Some free advice to the Padres on what notes to hit in their recruitment of a player who will get an earful: in light of Sasaki wanting to compete in MLB now rather than remain in Japan two more years to set up an infinitely bigger first MLB contract, it’s clear that Sasaki isn’t a “play it safe” type of competitor. That makes him a kindred spirit of Seidler, who in his zeal to bring Padres fans the club’s first World Series trophy, approved massive deficit spending and encouraged much zigging while MLB competitors zagged.

That’s common ground that should be highlighted.

All the more reason, then, that Sheel Seidler, the former chairman’s wife, should be part of the Padres’ team that tries to woo Sasaki.

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