The top free-agent starting pitcher in this offseason’s class may not be Aaron Nola or Blake Snell, but rather Japanese righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto. And evidently, the Philadelphia Phillies shouldn’t be ruled out for Yamamoto.
Jim Salisbury appeared on SportsRadio 94 WIP Tuesday and told Joe Giglio and Hugh Douglas that he’s heard the the Phillies are indeed interested in Yamamoto.
“I hear they have legit interest in Yamamoto, and to me it makes a ton of sense,” Salisbury said. “They might be a long shot, like I said given their lack of history with Japanese players, but so what? Go out and be aggressive and he might be an awfully good one to add because he’s an immediate contributor and someone who is going to be around for awhile.”
Jon Heyman of The New York Post reported back in August that the Phillies were “among at least 10 teams” who scouted a start that Yamamoto made, so there’s at least evidence president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and company have considered pursuing the Japanese righty.
As Salisbury noted, the Phillies have minimal history with courting Japanese players. In fact, the only two Japanese-born players to ever play for the Phillies are Tadahito Iguchi and So Taguchi, both of whom had already been with other MLB clubs before coming to Philadelphia. But as the World Baseball Classic reminded us, there’s an incredible amount of MLB-caliber players in Japan. Continuing to sit out the sweepstakes for top Japanese players would be putting your organization at a disadvantage.
Yamamoto is 25 years old, and in seven seasons playing for the Orix Buffaloes in Nippon Professional Baseball, he’s 70-29 with a 1.82 ERA and 0.935 WHIP. He logged 171 innings in a dominant final season in Japan, going 17-6 with a minuscule 1.16 ERA. He even recorded a 138-pitch complete game in the Japan Series, so if anything, Yamamoto is over-prepared for the type of workload he would have for an MLB team.
What would be the potential downsides to signing Yamamoto? There’s always risk in signing players who have never pitched in the majors to gigantic contracts, because you don’t know how they will react to new surroundings. Granted, the NPB is the second-toughest league in the world and Yamamoto helped Japan to win the 2023 World Baseball Classic, so there’s no reason to think he won’t be successful in transitioning to MLB. But it will be a drastic cultural shift, so you never know.
On top of that, there isn’t going to be any sort of discount for signing Yamamoto before he’s thrown an MLB pitch. Over on Just Baseball, I predicted that Yamamoto will sign for eight years and $240 million, a larger pact than either Nola or Snell. MLB Trade Rumors has him landing a nine year/$225 million deal. If Yamamoto proves to be even a No. 2 starter, either of those deals would age well. However, it would be a major commitment for a guy that’s never pitched in the majors.
The biggest hurdle the Phillies would have to clear if they were serious about signing Yamamoto would be convincing him and his representation that they would have the infrastructure in place to help him transition to the United States. Often times, Japanese players have signed with West Coast teams because it’s closer to home. An East Coast team like the New York Yankees has a history of luring Japanese stars, such as Hideki Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka. The Phillies don’t. But maybe Yamamoto could be the first.
