Predicting where every Japanese WBC star will sign this offseason
By Kevin Henry
MLB prediction: Yoshinobu Yamamoto will sign with the New York Yankees
Sure, there are plenty of St. Louis Cardinals fans who are connecting the dots with Lars Nootbaar playing for Team Japan and then playing a round of golf with Yamamoto this offseason, believing that that will be enough to land Yamamoto under the Gateway Arch. However, when all is said and done, there should be little that will stop the New York Yankees from spending what it takes to land the 25-year-old pitcher.
MLBTradeRumors.com is projecting Yamamoto will earn a nine-year, $225 million deal, so the Yankees will have to pay in that neighborhood (plus the posting fee to Orix) in order to have him in the rotation. New York is one of several teams that has expressed interest in Yamamoto early, and I have already predicted that the Yankees will come to terms with him before the MLB winter meetings are over in early December, so I have to stick with my gut on this one.
There has been some miscommunication about whether Yamamoto prefers to play with a Japanese teammate, and some of that was cleared up on Saturday when a "translation error" in an interview with his agent (Joel Wolfe) revealed that that isn't as important to him as first believed.
A recent article said that Yamamoto was "intrigued" by the history of the Yankees, and that future history will include him as one of the pitchers to take the mound in the Bronx.