When the Los Angeles Dodgers pitched Roki Sasaki on joining their franchise, they had an ace up their collective sleeve: toilets.
On Wednesday, Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten recalled how the franchise lured Sasaki, partly because of fancy new toilets installed in the team's clubhouse.
Kasten recalled that when the Dodgers were recruiting Sasaki, they were also deep into planning for modernizing their clubhouse. The plan had begun the year before when they were attempting to recruit Shohei Ohtani. Near the end of recruitment, Sasaki asked if the team planned to have fancy Japanese toilets installed.
"I said, 'Well, why do you ask? Is that important?' And he said, 'Oh, yeah, that's really important,'" Kasten said. "And I said, 'Oh yeah, then we're having them in there.' And so overnight we changed our plans, and now the entire locker room has these fancy Japanese toilets."
If only the Padres and Blue Jays had known about Sasaki's love of fancy toilets.
When the Dodgers landed the 23-year-old righty, he was almost universally considered the best pitching prospect in the world. Unfortunately for L.A., he has missed most of the season due to shoulder issues. When he has been on the mound, Sasaki has disappointed, going 1-1 with a 4.72 ERA, a 1.49 WHIP, and 24 strikeouts against 22 walks in 34 1/3 innings.
But hey, at least the whole team gets to use those fancy toilets.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Dodgers CEO Discusses How Fancy Toilets Helped Team Land Roki Sasaki.