Yoshinobu Yamamoto is already wowing his teammates with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but it sounds like he might have been wowed himself by the offer he received in free agency from the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Phillies offered Yamamoto more money than any other team did during the Japanese right-hander’s December free agency sweepstakes — including the 12-year, $325 million deal he eventually signed with the Dodgers, per a report from the Philadelphia Inquirer citing multiple MLB industry sources.
Phillies owner John Middelton confirmed to the Inquirer that the Phillies made a strong push for Yamamoto — and that he did not regret doing so despite the result.
“If I had to do it all over again, I’d still do what we did because I think you have to be able to look yourself in the mirror and say, ‘You know what? I tried,'” Middleton said, via Bleacher Report. “It’s kind of easy in that situation to say, ‘’We’ll just stay home and not even make an effort, or we’ll make a token effort because we’re probably going to wind up losing him.’ I’m not built that way. If he’s really good, you make the effort because you never know when you’ll change somebody’s mind.”
Though the Phillies met with Yamamoto in New York in December, they hoped to bring him to Philadelphia for a second meeting, but that never happened, per The Inquirer. The three reported finalists for Yamamoto were the Dodgers, New York Mets and New York Yankees. The Mets reportedly offered the same contract in terms of years and money that the Dodgers did, while the Yankees offered Yamamoto a 10-year, $300 million contract that would have contained a higher average annual value.
The contract Yamamoto did sign with the Dodgers is the overall richest in MLB history for a pitcher. Yamamoto, who grew up a Dodgers fan in Japan, told reporters he would have likely wound up signing with the team regardless of whether they ended up with two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani.
Ohtani, who signed a 10-year, $700 million deal with the Dodgers shortly before Yamamoto did, helped recruit his countryman and Team Japan teammate with whom he won the 2023 World Baseball Classic to Los Angeles. Yamamoto previously won three straight MVP awards in Nippon Professional Baseball with the Orix Buffaloes, cementing himself as the best professional pitcher in his home country.
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