Giants Can’t Bid on Yoshinobu Yamamoto
Yamamoto has been weighing offers throughout the week. While he technically has until the evening of January 4 to sign, the expectation is that he won’t take things to the wire.
That his camp is now in the process of whittling the field lends credence to the idea that a decision might not be far off.
The bidding seems as if it’ll surpass $250MM, before accounting for a posting fee owed to the Orix Buffaloes that could tack on another $45-50MM.
That fee is in proportion to the contract size, calculated as 20% of the deal’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM, and 15% of additional spending.
That reflects Yamamoto’s atypical youth for a free agent pitcher (25) and his sheer dominance in Japan.
Named NPB’s best pitcher three years running, he’s coming off a 1.21 ERA while striking out nearly 27% of opponents in 164 innings.
It’s a tough blow for the Giants, who come up short on another top-tier free agent. The Giants have missed on pursuits of Aaron Judge, Trea Turner and Shohei Ohtani within the past two offseasons alone, while their deal with Carlos Correa fell through because of the physical.
Yamamoto will join that list. San Francisco did land KBO star Jung Hoo Lee on a six-year, $113MM pact — the largest deal of Farhan Zaidi’s tenure as baseball operations president — but they haven’t gotten a truly elite free agent in some time.
San Francisco still has plenty of spending capacity as they decide on their next steps. Roster Resource projects their 2024 spending around $158MM. That’s about $30MM below this year’s Opening Day figure.
That opens the possibility for a run at any of the top remaining free agent talents. Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery headline the rotation class, while Matt Chapman was on the radar earlier in the offseason.
So was the top available hitter, Cody Bellinger, although the Lee signing seems to rule out a pursuit of another lefty-swinging center fielder. From a luxury tax perspective, they’re almost $45MM south of the base threshold.
The Giants appear to have swung and missed on the two top MLB free agents this offseason. Now that they have missed out on both, the Giants likely will pivot to other top-of-the-market free agents.
After failing to sign two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic reported, citing a source familiar with the discussions, that San Francisco has been informed it is out of the bidding for Japanese star pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
The Giants were one of many big-market teams vying for Yamamoto’s services and reportedly were devoting their “whole heart and finances” to signing either Yamamoto or Ohtani.
On Thursday, the San Francisco Giants were reportedly informed that they were out of the running for the Yoshinobu Yamamoto sweepstakes. While he has yet to make a decision, Insiders expect him to sign with either of the New York teams or the Los Angeles Dodgers.
This is yet another big-time free agent the team has missed out on. In recent years, they have been unable to sign Bryce Harper, Carlos Correa and Aaron Judge.
It is unfortunate news for San Francisco fans. They were hoping the team could bring in Yoshinobu Yamamoto but they will likely pivot to other frontline starters in the open market.
While San Francisco recently signed Korean star Jung Hoo Lee, fans do not see that as being enough. They are tired of losing out on players to the big three, that is, the Yankees, Dodgers and Mets.
Expectations were very high for the San Francisco Giants this offseason. After missing badly last offseason when it came to adding impact players, San Francisco was hell-bent on signing a star-level player this offseason with plenty to choose from.
The ultimate dream was to convince Shohei Ohtani to come to the Bay Area, but he ultimately chose the Dodgers. After Ohtani, all eyes turned to the best starting pitcher left on the market in Yoshinobu Yamamoto.