Cubs ace gets honest about Yu Darvish’s role in Roki Sasaki sweepstakes

Yu Darvish has played for the Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and the San Diego Padres. Surely, a connection can be made between his experience and all of these teams being one of the contenders to sign Roki Sasaki. At least Cubs ace Justin Steele wants to make the same for his team.

As per Justin Steele, speaking on the North Side Territory podcast, Japanese pitching veteran Yu Darvish's influence on his juniors has been massive. Steele pointed out that Darvish reflecting back on his three seasons in the city of Chicago has been beneficial for a team like Cubs to attract Japanese talent like Seiya Suzuki and Shota Imanaga.

"It seems like players that are newly coming over have a ton of respect for players that have previously come over. Someone's name I keep seeing is Yu Darvish, and a lot of the guys that are coming over have a ton of respect and like to listen to what he says.

"You always see clips of him mentioning or quoting how great Chicago is, how good they are, and just different things he says. It kind of relates to the Japanese players that are coming over, so guys like Seiya [Suzuki], Shota [Imanaga] it kind of makes them feel at ease."

Steele also made his feelings known about Roki Sasaki. The former has caught a few glimpses of the 23-year-old and felt excited for his future in North America.

"I've watched him pitch on TV, on YouTube, and he's obviously very young. But what he's doing at the age that he is, it's really impressive, and you can only see it getting much better from where he is. So, it's obviously exciting, and whoever gets him is gonna be very pleased with it," Steele said. [14:30]

Cubs out of Roki Sasaki sweestakes, down to three teams

Unfortunately for Steele and the Cubs, Sasaki will not be on their rotation for the time being. As per various reports, the Japanese flamethrower has narrowed down his choices to three finalists — the Dodgers, Padres, and Toronto Blue Jays.

The Cubs will be slightly disappointed as team president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer personally scouted the 23-year-old. In fact, the club has a history with Sasaki's agent Joel Wolffe. He represented Seiya Suzuki when he was posted from Japan in 2022 and ended up signing a five-year $85 million contract with Chicago.