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With Soto Signed, What Other International Stories Might Come Out Of MLB’s Winter Meetings?

 Leif Skodnick - World Baseball Network  |    Dec 9th, 2024 4:00pm EST

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For the next 15 years, Juan Soto will be a New York Met.

He’s also the $765 million man, a sum more than 71,000 times the annual per capita GDP of his native Dominican Republic if you go by data from the World Bank from 2023.

And while Soto’s potential signing was sucking all the oxygen out of the proverbial room so far this offseason, other notable signings and stories could come out of this week’s Major League Baseball Winter Meetings, which will be held this week at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas.

Here are some other potential international stories to follow this week.

Where Will Free Agents Land? With Soto headed to Queens, the teams that missed out on the sweepstakes for the services of Soto can now set their eyes on alternatives. Here are a few to follow:

• The Los Angeles Dodgers, who were in the hunt for Soto, will now have to consider whether or not to resign Teoscar Hernandez, who made $15 million with $10 million deferred last year with the Dodgers. With 33 homers and 99 RBI last season, Hernandez is likely in line for a comparable annual salary to what he got last year. Who’s going to give it to him?
• Will the Yankees bring back Venezuelan infielder Gleyber Torres? His best season in pinstripes came two years ago when he generated 4.0 bWAR in 140 games as the starting second baseman. The big question for Brian Cashman is whether he can find that production at a cheaper price, either within the Yankees’ minor league system or on the trading block.
• Will Yoan Moncada, who has largely been a disappointment on the South Side of Chicago, get another chance with the White Sox? He only appeared in 12 games at the MLB level last season and went just 2-for-14 for Cuba at the 2024 WBSC Premier12. At 29, he may have something left in the tank, but he probably won’t be getting a big contract this time around.
• Among pitchers, Curacaoan closer Kenley Jansen could potentially return to the Dodgers. Jansen has been with the Boston Red Sox the last two years, but Boston just signed Aroldis Chapman, which means that Jansen, who posted 27 saves in 54 appearances last year, will likely be playing musical chairs.

How Much Will A Team Shell Out For Sasaki? Japanese pitching phenom Roki Sasaki has been posted, meaning that MLB teams can sign Sasaki to a contract and pay the posting fee to his team in Nippon Professional Baseball, the Chiba Lotte Marines.

While Sasaki’s contract likely won’t be hammered out during the Winter Meetings — teams have 45 days to negotiate with Sasaki before the negotiation period closes — the heralded starter with a fastball that touches the triple digits is one of the top pitchers on the free agent market.

The biggest question about Sasaki is not the likelihood of his success in MLB but rather whether or not he’ll get a contract approaching or exceeding the value of the deal Yoshinobu Yamamoto got from the Los Angeles Dodgers last offseason, which was a 12-year deal worth $325 million. Over the course of the week, we’ll likely hear some speculation on how much money Sasaki might come away with.

More International Games – Potentially, we could find out whether MLB has more international regular season games planned for the seasons ahead. There are only two regular season games scheduled for 2025; the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers will open the season with a two-game set at the Tokyo Dome. In late 2023, MLB announced that it had scrapped plans to play a pair of 2025 regular season games in Paris, France after the league was unable to partner with a promoter for the series. Last month, Ron Blum of the Associated Press reported that games were planned for Mexico City and San Juan, Puerto Rico, for the 2025 season. The collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the Major League Baseball Players’ Association includes plans for games during the 2026 season to be played in London, Mexico City, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Perhaps we’ll hear more about these plans, as well as what might lie beyond 2026.

Will Jacques Doucet Finally Get His Due? Major League Baseball’s original international team, the Montreal Expos, have been gone since 2004, but it seems as though Jacques Doucet, the team’s longtime play-by-play announcer, pops up on the Ford Frick Award ballot nearly every year. Doucet spent 33 years as a French language broadcaster for the Expos, and returned to the booth as the French voice of the Toronto Blue Jays from 2012-22. He’s largely responsible for the translation of baseball terminology into French, called two perfect games, and has been behind the microphone for over 5,000 MLB games. If he had done half as many games for a team in the United States, he’d probably have won the award already. So why isn’t Doucet a Frick Award winner?