NL West rivals at center of Roki Sasaki sweepstakes

Dodgers people say there’s no deal yet for Japanese superstar right-hander Roki Sasaki but insiders are assuming LA is the heavy favorite.The rival Padres are their main Sasaki competition due to his Yu Darvish connection.But it will be a surprise if Sasaki isn’t a Dodger.One insider: “If I were a star Japanese player, I’d want to be a Dodger, too.”The Dodgers are looking into ace free agents Blake Snell, Corbin Burnes and Max Fried, and word is that assuming they land Sasaki, they’ll try for one more big pitcher.

They’ll also consider re-signing Walker Buehler, a frequent October hero.And that’s with Yoshinobu Yamamoto, plus Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin back, Clayton Kershaw’s all-but-certain return and hopes for uber-talented Bobby Miller and other assorted kids.The champion 2024 Dodgers are the ultimate example of never having too much pitching.The Dodgers also showed you can never have too much scouting.They are known as an analytics team yet had at least five advance scouts following other playoffs.They predicted fundamentals issues for the Yankees, as The Post’s Joel Sherman reported.Excepting that fateful fifth inning, the Yankees’ defense actually was average or better throughout the year.But Yankees baserunning was ranked 30th of 30 teams by FanGraphs.Was it even that good?...