The San Diego Padres, long viewed among the favorites to sign the next "big thing" from Nippon Professional Baseball, remain among the very few teams with a chance to sign him.

According to multiple reports, including one from ESPN's Jeff Passan, the Padres, the Toronto Blue Jays, and Los Angeles Dodgers are the three finalists to sign Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki.

Sasaki was posted by his current team, the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japanese Professional Baseball, in December. Nearly every Major League Baseball team showed interest in bringing him on board.

Last season in Japan, Sasaki posted a 10-5 record and a 2.35 ERA with 129 strikeouts and 32 walks over 111 innings.

Due to Sasaki still being only 23, there is a cap on the amount that he can initially make in Major League Baseball. Due to his not being 25 yet, his posting will not be able to set off the kind of bidding frenzy that led to the Dodgers signing Yoshinobu Yamamoto to a 12-year, $325 million contract.

Earlier Monday, Mike Axisa of CBS Sports ranked San Diego No. 1 among the then-six teams that were still in the hunt to sign Sasaki due to the connection the team has with a would-be rotation mate.

Axisa wrote: "Similar to (the Dodgers') Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Sasaki is said to have grown close to Yu Darvish during the 2023 WBC, to the point that he considers Darvish a mentor. The Padres also offer Sasaki a much clearer path to being The Man in the near future. With the Dodgers, he will always be in Ohtani's shadow, and behind Yamamoto and others in the rotation."

Keeping Sasaki from joining the embarrassment of riches that makes up the rival Dodgers would also make signing Sasaki a major score for San Diego.