Ever since Shohei Ohtani chose to sign with the Dodgers and Yoshinobu Yamamoto joined him just weeks later, the expectation every time a Japanese star hits the free-agent market has been that he’ll sign with Los Angeles. And it’s pretty sound reasoning.
The Dodgers spend like money grows on trees — because when you have a marketing monopoly over the rest of the league in an entire country, it does — but it’s not even just about the money. Each star from Japan who chooses to call Dodger Stadium his home makes it that much more appealing of a destination for the next one, which helped them sign Ru014dki Sasaki despite his amateur free agent status leveling the financial playing field.