Yankees Ready To Meet With Yamamoto

The New York Yankees will reportedly meet with its top pitching target, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, on Monday — but the meeting won’t take place in the Big Apple. Per the New York Post, representatives of the Yankees will fly to Los Angeles on Monday to meet with the superstar, one they hope will sign with them and add to their rotation that includes Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole. With Shohei Ohtani having agreed to a 10-year, $700 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the expectation is that the free-agent market will start to move, with Yamamoto being one of the beneficiaries.

The Post also reported that Yamamoto’s deal, along with the posting fee to his Nippon Professional Baseball team, the Orix Buffaloes, could pass $300 million. The Yankees were one of up to 14 teams that spoke with Yamamoto and his representatives via Zoom or phone a couple of weeks ago. During that time, New York Mets owner Steve Cohen flew to Japan to meet with Yamamoto. This week, Yamamoto is expected to meet with the teams he considers to be the finalists after the initial meetings. He has until Jan. 4 to reach a deal after he was posted by Orix.

Whoever signs Yamamoto will be getting a rare player, one that won three straight Pacific League MVP awards, along with three straight Sawamura Awards, which is the Japanese Cy Young. He is only the third player to win an MVP award three straight years in the NPB, along with Ichiro Suzuki and Hisashi Yamada. In 2023 Yamamoto went 16-6 with a 1.21 ERA and struck out 169 hitters in 164 innings. He threw his second career no-hitter and threw in the Japan Series, where he struck out 14 hitters in Game 6, which set a series record.

Yamamoto has a 70-29 record. He has a mid-90s fastball, but he is best known for an array of breaking pitches that can befuddle hitters. He’s also won gold medals for Japan in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.