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Yoshinobu Yamamoto was on the celebrity list for Thursday night’s Rams game, alongside Shohei Ohtani.
The free-agent Japanese star never made it, however.
He was busy finalizing a deal on the other side of town.
Yamamoto agreed to a 12-year, $325 million deal with the big-spending Dodgers, according to a person with knowledge of the deal not authorized to discuss it publicly, beating out at least a dozen other teams to procure the most coveted starting pitcher on the free-agent market.
The deal gives Yamamoto, a three-time MVP in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball who has never before pitched in the major leagues, the most guaranteed money ever for a pitcher in MLB history.
His arrival also marks the Dodgers’ third major acquisition in a week, joining two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani, who signed a record 10-year, $700-million contract last Thursday, and veteran right-hander Tyler Glasnow, who signed a five-year, $136.5-million extension on Saturday after being traded from Tampa Bay to Los Angeles.
And Ohtani, who has added “recruiting coordinator” to his already vast tool kit, helped make both deals happen, joining fellow most valuable player award winners Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman for last Tuesday’s sales pitch to Yamamoto in Dodger Stadium and reportedly recording a video message to woo Glasnow.
“It was important to Shohei that this wasn’t the one move we were gonna make, and I think anyone who has watched us operate over the years, we’re trying to add really good players at every turn,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said at Thursday’s introductory news conference for Ohtani.
“We also gave our pledge [to Ohtani to keep adding], because that’s something that was incredibly important to [owner] Mark Walter, and it’s incredibly important to us, so those things were in perfect alignment.”
The 5-foot-10, 176-pound Yamamoto, who joined Ohtani to help Japan win last spring’s World Baseball Classic, was named Pacific League MVP for the third straight year in late November after winning his third straight Sawamura Award, the Japanese equivalent of the Cy Young Award.
Yamamoto was officially posted by the Orix Buffaloes on Nov. 20 after going 70-29 with a 1.82 ERA in 172 Nippon Professional Baseball games, striking out 922, walking 206 and yielding an 0.935 WHIP (walks plus hits per inning) and just 36 homers in 172 innings. He went 1-0 with a 2.45 ERA with 12 strikeouts in 7 ⅓ WBC innings.
Though not physically imposing, Yamamoto’s four-pitch repertoire features a four-seam fastball that sits in the 94-95-mph range, with good ride from a lower release point, a nasty 90-mph split-fingered fastball that features 20 inches of vertical drop, and a high-spin-rate 77-mph curve with a whopping 77 inches of vertical drop.
Yamamoto was expected to command a deal of at least $200 million, but as more talent evaluators determined his stuff would play in the more competitive major leagues and more teams entered the bidding, his price tag went up.
That seemed to be of little concern to the Dodgers, who are attempting to build a super team around Ohtani that can compete for World Series titles year after year, no matter the cost.
Their 2024 payroll for competitive balance tax purposes stood at about $256 million, according to Cots Contracts, before the Yamamoto deal, but the Dodgers will blow past the third luxury tax threshold of $277 million with this signing.
Ohtani will be limited to hitting while he recovers from Tommy John surgery in 2024, but a Dodgers rotation plagued by injuries and inexperience last season will now feature erstwhile ace Walker Buehler, who is returning after his second Tommy John surgery, Glasnow, the former Rays ace, Yamamoto and breakout rookie Bobby Miller.
The 2025 rotation could feature Ohtani, Glasnow, Yamamoto, Buehler (if he re-signs), Miller and either Dustin May or Tony Gonsolin, who are both expected to miss 2024 while recovering from Tommy John surgery.
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