Sources: Japanese star Yamamoto goes to Dodgers for 12 years, $325M

Japanese star Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Los Angeles Dodgers have agreed to a 12-year, $325 million contract, sources told ESPN on Thursday, ending a free agency frenzy with the biggest contract for a pitcher for years and a value in Major League Baseball history.

The deal, for which Los Angeles will pay an additional $50.6 million in posting fees to Yamamoto's previous team, the Orix Buffaloes, brought the Dodgers' free agent spending this winter to more than a billion dollars, after the 10-year, $700 million contract they awarded. to Shohei Ohtani, Yamamoto's compatriot.

Yamamoto, who has two opt-outs in the contract, will receive a $50 million signing bonus, sources said. Unlike Ohtani's deal, in which $680 million is deferred over 10 years, Yamamoto's contract contains no deferred money.

The deal, which is pending a medical review, comes after a wild 48 hours in which the Dodgers outlasted the New York Mets, who were offering a similar contract, and the New York Yankees, who have long been the favorites but ended up offering $300 million, according to sources. said. The Philadelphia Phillies, San Francisco Giants, Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays were also in contention, but were unable to defeat the Dodgers, who now account for more than half of MLB's spending in free agency this winter.

Yamamoto, 25, a right-hander who won three consecutive MVP awards and Sawamura Awards – Nippon Professional Baseball's equivalent of Cy Young – has dominated the NPB like no one in the league's 74-year history since his transition from the NPB. bullpen to Orix's rotation in 2019. In 820⅓ innings, he posted a 1.65 ERA, struck out nearly five times as many batters as he walked and allowed one circuit every 28 innings.

With a fastball that runs up to 99 mph, a devastating split-fingered fastball and a looping curveball that often buckles hitters' knees, he brings an arsenal as good as any pitcher from Japan to the Major League Baseball. At 5-foot-10 and 176 pounds, Yamamoto doesn't have the size of a typical front-line starter, but teams that were interested in him weren't worried, focusing more on the quality of things than his body can generate.

It does this through a unique training method that prioritizes flexibility and movement over brute strength. Yamamoto doesn't lift weights, relying instead on an exercise program with body weight, stretching and a significant amount of throwing – from tiny soccer balls and mini javelins to long throws and bullpens with regulation size baseballs. His athleticism, according to evaluators, allows him to transmit force on the ball disproportionate to his size.

As a result, teams have been lining up for over a year to sign him. They expected him to be assigned after he turns 25 in August, because he would no longer be subject to MLB rules that require players to sign international amateur contracts – in which compensation is limited to bonuses of less than $10 million – before they were hired. 25th anniversary.

Dodgers president Andrew Friedman, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, Giants president Farhan Zaidi and Chicago Cubs president Jed Hoyer were among the executives who traveled to Japan this year to see Yamamoto in person.

Once Yamamoto was officially named on Nov. 20, with a 45-day deadline for him to sign, Mets owner Steve Cohen and chairman David Stearns flew there to meet with him. Yamamoto's tour of the United States included another stop with the Mets, two visits with the Yankees and meetings with the Dodgers, Giants, Phillies and Red Sox.

Those meetings helped Yamamoto crystallize his priorities before the teams began discussing terms of the deal with Yamamoto and his agent, Joel Wolfe, on Monday. Of Yamamoto's five excellent seasons as a starter, 2023 may have been the best, with a 1.21 ERA over 164 innings, a 6-1 strikeout-to-score ratio and just two home runs allowed.

Yamamoto's deal, which was reported earlier by ESPN's Buster Olney, exceeds Gerrit Cole's $324 million guaranteed by the Yankees by $1 million.