MLB reports say that the Giants turned down at least one $300 million offer for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, with the Dodgers, Yankees, and Mets being the favorites.
For Major League Baseball, the winter is still pretty slow, and now we’re in the “holiday break” zone, when not much happens between Christmas and New Year’s.
However, there is still a lot to do, so maybe this year things will be different and the stove will get hot again.
The most sought-after free agent starting pitcher this offseason, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, is a right-hander. He hasn’t made a choice yet, but it’s getting close.
Posting rules say he has 45 days to decide, which means he has to make up his mind by January 4.
According to Jon Morosi, Yamamoto has at least a single bid worth $300 million or more. This is in line with recent predictions about the size of the deal he’ll get.
The teams that are after Yamamoto did something very important on Thursday night. Alex Pavlovic says that Yamamoto has told the San Francisco Giants he won’t be signing with them.
Ben Nicholson-Smith also says that Yamamoto is not likely to be signed by the Blue Jays. Several news sources (mlb.com) say that the Phillies have made Yamamoto an official offer.
Reports say that the Phillies think they made a good offer, but they probably won’t be the highest buyer or the favorite to sign him. The Phillies’ offer of $300 million or more is not known where it is.
As of now, the Phillies are the only big free agent team to sign a new contract. They did so with starting pitcher Aaron Nola, giving him a seven-year, $172 million deal.
With the way their staff is now, Yamamoto could make the Phillies completely loaded. There is already Nola, Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suárez, Taijuan Walker, and Christopher Sánchez on the team.
They’d have four players on the front line if they added Yamamoto, Suárez played the full season he seems capable of, and Nola got back to his old self after a bad 2023. Walker has been there before as an All-Star.
In the first half, the 2023 team looked like one of the best in baseball. But as the season went on, they let their fans down, and then they went on an October run like no other, winning 11 straight games on the road to win the title.
After years of hard work, they finally got the trophy. Now, instead of chasing another title, they are defending the crown.
We all know that it’s been over two decades since the same team won the World Series twice.
It’s getting harder and harder to repeat playoff success year after year in baseball, so the Rangers have the work cut tough on them.
It will probably take a huge contract, though one that wouldn’t be too surprising given how much the Rangers have been spending lately and the reality that they were in the running to sign Ohtani in his first round in free agency.
No one will blame them if Ohtani goes to another team, though. They don’t have to try as hard to get him as, say, the Dodgers or a bunch of other teams who didn’t just win the World Series.
You can also find a lot of other outstanding athletes that they could spend a lot of money on for the third winter in a row.
To show that they are still totally committed to winning, getting Shohei Ohtani would be the most obvious thing to do.
I’m most interested in how much the Rangers’ owners are ready to keep spending, even if Ohtani doesn’t sign, now that their bodies have won the championship they had been chasing for so long.