Yoshinobu Yamamoto Posting Approved by Orix Before 2023 MLB Free Agency amid Rumors
The Orix Buffaloes of Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball announced Sunday that star pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto would be posted, giving MLB teams a 45-day window to negotiate and sign him to a deal.
The team that signs him would then pay Orix a posting fee based on the total amount of the contract.
Yamamoto should have a wide swath of suitors. He's immediately one of the top talents available in free agency, with Mark Feinsand of MLB.com ranking him as the No. 2 available player behind only two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani.
As he noted, Yamamoto has "won both Pacific League MVP honors and the Sawamura Award (Japan's version of the Cy Young) in each of the past two years and the Triple Crown in each of the past three. Scouts believe Yamamoto can immediately jump into the No. 1 or 2 spot in a big-league rotation."
Keith Law of The Athletic rates him as the No. 4 free agent this offseason, meanwhile, noting that "he'll sit 94-96 mph with an out pitch in his splitter along with a cutter and a very high-spin curveball, the last of which is somewhat rare for pitchers from Japan. He's coming off a year when he posted the lowest walk rate (4.4 percent)... of his NPB career."
The 25-year-old was 17-6 with a 1.16 ERA, 0.86 WHIP and 176 strikeouts in 171 innings across 24 starts this past season. And in Game 6 of the Japan World Series he struck out 14 batters, breaking Yu Darvish's previous series record of 13 strikeouts.
"I went to the mound able to concentrate really well," Yamamoto said after that effort, per Kyodo News (h/t ESPN). "I'm very happy that I was able to deliver the goods right until the end. The crowd's cheers at the start of the ninth really gave me a boost."
As for where he might end up, Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported that both the New York Mets and Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks and Detroit Tigers have been "linked" to Yamamoto, among others.
This year's MLB free agency features a strong class of starting pitchers, including Blake Snell, Aaron Nola, Sonny Gray, Jordan Montgomery, Eduardo Rodriguez, Shōta Imanaga, Lucas Giolito and Marcus Stroman, among others. But Yamamoto will be one of the top arms available.
