Yankees voice Michael Kay rightfully rips Roki Sasaki's agent Joel Wolfe for process

Anti-Yankees fans will of course call this "coping" because New York was unable to land Roki Sasaki, but in reality it's more of a plea among baseball fans in general for this nonsense to stop. Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay has a point that's at least debatable.

It dates all the way back to Shohei Ohtani never having interest in coming to the east coast. But he still went on an extensive tour to meet with teams before knocking them all off his list and choosing the LA Angels (and then the Dodgers in free agency). Same goes for Yoshinobu Yamamoto. He used the Yankees and Mets as negotiating chips to get as much money from the Dodgers as he possibly could.

And now, with Sasaki, it's a different situation because of his posting and status under the international free agent rules. But perhaps even more importantly, he's the latest international star from Japan who has been telegraphed to sign with the Dodgers for over a year, only to conduct a charade in an attempt to distract everybody from that reality ... and then eventually sign there anyway.

It's just an exhaustive exercise. Never before have we seen names linked to once specifc team (or region of the country) so far in advance. So if that's the case, then save everybody the time, especially in Sasaki's case, since the financial advantage was removed due to his earnings restriction.

Kay lamented about just that on Tuesday's episode of "The Michael Kay Show" and called out Sasaki's agent, Joel Wolfe, for conducting his client's free agency like an episode of "The Bachelor."

"This looks so contrived ... it looks like a really bad reality show."

Yankees losing Roki Sasaki had reality show vibes, per Michael Kay

Why? Because, as everyone expected, the finalists for Sasaki are the Dodgers and Padres, with the Blue Jays being mentioned likely as a way for Wolfe to say "Hey, we told you it wasn't all west coast teams!" much like he did with Yamamoto last offseason when it came down to the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets, only for it to be revealed Yamamoto always preferred LA.

The difference here is that Sasaki's situation affected how teams could spend their international money. If a small-to-mid market team felt like they had a chance at the right-hander, they might've been put in a position to de-prioritize previously preferred options once the signing period began on Jan. 15. Now, Sasaki's "finalists" came down on Monday night, so there was ample time for teams to adjust, but he was posted a month ago and finished meeting with teams weeks ago ... only for all of this to once again be pushed up right against the deadline.

Kay did mention that Yankees fans can't get mad at the Dodgers in any way possible for signing all the best players because "that used to be the Yankees." LA has the upper hand, whether it's geographic location, brand, roster superiority, ability to take advantage of the CBA, you name it. Long story short? The Yankees need to make themselves attractive again because the amount of big names who have spurned them in recent years suggests the franchise is still trying to coast off its past success.