The rest of the baseball world might have always thought the Dodgers were getting Roki Sasaki.
But as the team recruited the 23-year-old Japanese phenom pitcher in recent weeks, front office officials insist they were never certain.
Not until Shohei Ohtani, the fellow Japanese star who was teammates with Sasaki in the World Baseball Classic, first broke the news to executives that Sasaki had decided to sign in Los Angeles.
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“Shohei beat the agent to the punch,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said with a laugh.