Japanese star pitcher generating extensive interest

As the best pitcher in Japan and someone who’s been made available to MLB teams at just 25 years of age, Orix Buffaloes right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto was always expected to command an aggressive bidding war. Yamamoto’s 45-day negotiation window with MLB clubs opened Tuesday morning, and he’s unsurprisingly drawn widespread early interest.

Agent Joel Wolfe of Wasserman, who’s representing Yamamoto, told the Kyodo News last night that he’s already heard from 11 to 14 teams already.

“This is by far the player with the most interested teams that I have ever seen at the beginning of free agency,” said Wolfe, an executive vice president of one of the sport’s largest agencies. As one would expect, Wolfe indicated that Yamamoto isn’t approaching free agency with any restrictions based on geography. (Even if Yamamoto does have some specific geographic preferences, those would likely be kept close to the vest — if only as a means of retaining leverage in talks.)

The list of teams already linked to Yamamoto in free agency nearly outnumbers the list of teams who’ve not yet had public ties to him. The Cardinals, Phillies (even after re-signing Aaron Nola), Diamondbacks, Tigers, Yankees, Mets, Blue Jays, Cubs, Giants, Red Sox and Dodgers have all been reported to have interest in Yamamoto. That’s 11 teams right there, and it’s surely not a comprehensive list. Yamamoto figures to draw interest from contending clubs and non-contenders alike, given the rarity with which a free agent of this caliber reaches the market at such a young age. Even a team eyeing 2025 or 2026 as a more realistic range for competing could outbid the field for Yamamoto and know that he’d be squarely in his prime years when that window for contention is more earnestly open.

Yamamoto has been evaluated extensively by MLB scouts, with the consensus being that he’s a legitimate No. 1 or No. 2 caliber arm in a big league rotation. Between that ceiling, his age and his brilliant track record in Japan, he’s expected to command the largest contract ever for an NPB pitcher making the jump to MLB — perhaps a deal in excess of $200M (plus the requisite posting fee). Yamamoto has won three straight Sawamura Awards in Japan — NPB’s equivalent of MLB’s Cy Young Award — and just posted a career-best 1.21 ERA in 2023. He’s logged a sub-2.00 ERA in four of his past five seasons while punching out better than 27% of his opponents against a tidy 5.7% walk rate.

Any team that signs Yamamoto will owe a posting/release fee to the Buffaloes. That fee is equivalent to 20% of the contract’s first $25M, plus 17.5% of the next $25M (a combined total of $9.375M), plus 15% of any money thereafter. Using MLBTR’s predicted nine-year, $225M deal as a hypothetical example, that contract would come with a $35.625M fee — a total outlay of $260.25M for the signing team. Given Yamamoto’s youth and the substantial demand for him, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if any deal wound up containing an opt-out a few years into the pact, thus allowing him to return to free agency in his late 20s after having the potential to establish himself as a genuine top-of-the-rotation arm in the majors.