The Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) team has granted 25-year-old Yoshinobu Yamamoto permission to use the player posting system to try his luck in the major leagues.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto is a player that every Major League Baseball team would love to have, but MLB Insider Bob Nightengale told Dodgers Nation that he believes one of three teams—the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, or New York Mets—will get the opportunity to sign Yamamoto to a contract:
Said Nightengale on Yoshinobu Yamamoto, “I certainly think [Yamamoto’s contract] will pass $200 million. I think he’ll be the highest free agent pitcher out there. I think that he’ll beat Blake Snell. But yeah, everybody wants this guy. He loves the limelight. I think it’s down to the Dodgers, Yankees, and Mets. I have a hard time believing it’ll be anybody else.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto went 16-6 in 23 games with a 1.21 ERA for the Buffaloes in the recently concluded season in which Orix fell short of winning the league title after losing Game 7 of the Japan Series to the Hanshin Tigers.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s MLB career is still very much up in the air, but the Dodgers are currently the favorites to sign the pitcher at +400. With odds of +500, the New York Yankees, another major player in free agency every year, are directly behind Los Angeles. In contrast, the New York Mets are given +600 odds to win the Yamamoto sweepstakes. The Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Texas Rangers are the teams who fall between +800 and +1400 in the odds range.
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