Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Dodgers agree to 12-year deal, source confirms

Yoshinobu Yamamoto of Team Japan looks on during the fifth inning against Team Mexico during the World Baseball Classic Semifinals at loanDepot park on March 20, 2023, in Miami. Credit: TNS/Megan Briggs
The Yankees, in the words of general manager Brian Cashman earlier this month, planned to put their collective “best foot forward” in aggressively courting free agent Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
It wasn’t good enough.
The pitching-needy Yankees, who entered the winter with signing the free agent Japanese pitcher among their top priorities, saw Yamamoto burst their bubble late Thursday night by agreeing to a 12-year, $325-million deal with the Dodgers, a source confirmed.
Where the Yankees, whose organizational starting pitching depth took a hit with the trades that brought aboard outfielders Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo, turn next in that department was a question already starting to be addressed on the inside after learning of Yamamoto’s decision.
But make no mistake: there was no shortage of disappointment within the franchise. The Yankees, who met twice with the 25-year-old righthander in the last two weeks, believed until the very end they were in as good a position to sign Yamamoto as anyone. Instead, it was the Dodgers, who previously signed the winter’s biggest free agent target, Shohei Ohtani, to a 10-year, $700-million contract, closing the deal.
The Dodgers had talent evaluators in Japan most of the season watching Yamamoto, just as other highly-interested teams like the Yankees, Mets, Giants, and Phillies – to name a handful – did.
The Yankees, no different than those other teams, believed Yamamoto to have front-of-the-rotation potential and the only question once his free agency began was how well compensated he would be for that.
“When there’s an opportunity to add more toward the front-end of it (a rotation) potentially, you have to try and play on that if you can,” Cashman said in early December at the winter meetings.
The Yankees, who offered a deal in the range of $300 million, entered the offseason among the favorites to land Yamamoto, and it will be left to managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner to answer to an angry fanbase why he wasn’t willing to bid higher. Depending on how successful Yamamoto is or isn’t in the big leagues ultimately will determine how long that fan anger will last and how hot it will burn.
Speaking earlier in the day – hours before news of Yamamoto-to-the-Dodgers broke – Aaron Boone talked about his interactions with the pitcher.
The manager was part of a Yankees contingent – which included Steinbrenner, team president Randy Levine, Cashman, and pitching coach Matt Blake – visiting with Yamamoto in Los Angeles less than two weeks ago, and among those meeting with him last weekend in Manhattan.
“Special dude,” Boone said of what he’s taken away from his interactions with Yamamoto, who went 16-6 with a 1.21 ERA, 0.884 WHIP, and 169 strikeouts in 164 innings last season with the Orix Buffaloes of the Nippon Professional Baseball League. “Some presence to him, comfortable in his skin, confident, but a humility to him…I think he wants to be great, I think that’s what’s important to him. There’s some similarities there between him and Gerrit [Cole] in how dedicated and disciplined and all-in they are on pitching and baseball and their body and how to be successful.”
Boone spoke outside the NYPD’s 44th Precinct Thursday where he, along with some precinct officers, participated in a Food Bank for New York City event, passing out groceries and toys to neighborhood families.
Not surprisingly, much of Boone’s session with the media revolved around his team’s pursuit of Yamamoto.
The Yankees have had their share of players from Japan who have come over and had immediate success with them, a group that includes Hideki Matsui, Hiroki Kuroda and Masahiro Tanaka (Ichiro Suzuki, toward the end of his career, was dealt to the Yankees from the Mariners in 2012 and played the 2013 and ’14 seasons with them). Boone said Matsui, who still maintains close ties to the franchise, was involved in the recruiting process but did not specify.
“Hopefully [those] are things that matter and add up,” Boone said. “But we’ll see.”
The Yankees did see late Thursday night and it was nothing to their liking.
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