One MLB Team Has Been Told They Are Out Of The Yoshinobu Yamamoto Sweepstakes

With Shohei Ohtani having signed with the Dodgers last month, the best remaining free agent is Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Nearly all of baseball’s biggest clubs are in on the Japanese pitcher.

But, one club has been informed they are no longer in the running for the services of the best pitcher on the free agent market this year, and that club is the San Francisco Giants.

The Giants and team president Farhan Zahidi were expected to be very active in this year’s free agency as they try to rebuild the roster and accelerate their contention timeline. But, they’ve struck out on Shohei Ohtani and now it seems like they have struck out on their top pitching target as well.

Yamamoto is expected to get well over $300 million dollars in a contract, no matter who he signs with. That would easily be a record for a player who has never played in Major League Baseball, but he may well be worth it.

He’s shined in the NPB, Japan’s version of MLB. The right-handed flamethrower is the only pitcher in professional baseball history, regardless of league, to win the pitching triple crown (wins, strikeouts, ERA) three years in a row. For his career playing for the Orix Buffaloes, Yamamoto is 70-29 with a 1.82 ERA and 922 strikeouts in just 897 innings.

In last year’s World Baseball Classic, he pitched 7 1/3 innings with 12 strikeouts and a 2.45 ERA, showing off the nasty stuff that has teams going wild.

Currently, the Mets, Yankees, and Dodgers are linked to Yamamoto the most, with other teams like the Red Sox and Blue Jays also heavily pursuing the superstar. The Blue Jays and Red Sox are also likely out. Yamamoto is believed to have met multiple times with the Mets and the Yankees, and both clubs desperately want him. He projects as a top-line starter for a decade-plus.

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