$325 million for a guy that hasn't played one MLB game? Here's what you need to know about Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Following the likes of Masahiro Tanaka, Hideo Nomo and Yu Darvish, Yoshinobu Yamamoto is the next big Japanese pitcher coming from the NPB to the MLB.
PHILADELPHIA, PA- reports came out that Yoshinobu Yamamoto had decided on his destination: The Los Angeles Dodgers. That was with the hefty price of 325 million dollars over 12 years. Those numbers became official today, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto held his press conference to officially become a Dodger.
This deal follows another former NPB player, Shohei Ohtani, joining the Dodgers on a monumental agreement worth ten years, $700 million, which Ohtani mostly deferred so the Dodgers could keep spending on players such as World Baseball Classic (WBC) winning teammate Yamamoto. At his press conference, Yamamoto prepared a speech in English and expressed his excitement about joining Ohtani and the Dodgers. The right-hander is 25 years old, but he’s been dominating the NPB since he was 18. This contract will last most of his career, solidifying a Dodger legacy before it even started.
Let’s dive into what Yamamoto did in the NPB. His first taste of the consensus second-best league in the world was at 18, but he posted a 2.89 ERA in his age-19 season. An ERA like that before turning 20 is bananas. Along with the World Baseball Classic (WBC), these past three seasons (age 22-24) have been the ones to draw scouts towards Yamamoto. The ERAs from those seasons were 1.39, 1.68 and 1.21. This past year also came with an incredible career-high strikeout-to-walk ratio of 6.04. This season’s stats don’t stop there: 0.88 WHIP, .184 BAA, and, get this, 0.1 Home Runs per 9 innings. 0.1! He allowed two home runs in 164 innings pitched. That is insanity.
What Yamamoto did in the NPB is worthy of a Tim Kurkijan-style rant. He may need to adjust to the MLB for a bit, but once he does, he’ll be another part of this Dodgers team, which will be scary hours for the league. I expect Yamamoto to go under a 3.00 ERA on average in his first five years as a Dodger. For someone worth $325 million, however, a 2.99 ERA in your prime may not even fulfill expectations.
Yamamoto may have very high expectations for someone who hasn’t thrown one pitch in the MLB, but with his talent and contract, it’s no wonder why. Yamamoto specializes in controlled movement on his pitches. He can pair great control with incredible movement, a recipe for MLB success. The fastball is thrown in the mid-90s and combines low release and great break, which should make an excellent primary pitch in the MLB. He has a bat-breaking style cutter with a mid-90s speed. It’s his contact pitch instead of an out pitch, and since the league is trending towards Three True Outcomes, it’s likely Yamamoto will put this one in his back pocket for the MLB. His sweeper is in the mid-80s and will be under development in Spring Training as it will be a more used pitch in his transition to the MLB with more righties.
These next two are what wowed the scouts about Yamamoto. The splitter and the curveball are the two pitches that will dazzle in today’s MLB. His splitter is probably still dropping from the table as we speak with the amount of movement it has. Nothing screams out pitch like this. His splitter is a pitch you will commonly see in any highlight reel with its wicked downward movement and will be fooling home run-hungry hitters in the MLB. Next is the curveball, the most common out pitch in the MLB. This is one of two out pitches for Yamamoto. Yamamoto makes this pitch look like a yo-yo with the vertical bend this pitch has. This curveball combines 66 inches of vertical drop with a strike rate of around 70 percent! Yoshinobu Yamamoto is taking two top-notch pitches to the MLB that will be discussed for years.
Overall, after this assessment of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, he is worth every penny of his contract. How his stats and pitches visually and on paper turn out, Yamamoto will be fooling MLB hitters from his first pitch to his last. I know he will be amusing to watch. I predict he will exceed his $325 million expectation and become a Top-10 Dodger pitcher of all time. It’s up to Yamamoto to continue the legacy of Japanese pitchers and Dodger Blue.