Relentless Dodgers Splash Cash To Add Yamamoto on $325 Million Mega-Deal
Late Thursday night, while Shohei Ohtani was awkwardly smiling on the jumbotron at the Rams game in Los Angeles, the Dodgers were wrapping up the details on a massive, 12-year contract for 25-year-old Japanese righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the amount of $325 million. The Dodgers will also pay roughly $50 million in posting fees to Yamamoto’s former NPB team, the Orix Buffaloes, making the Dodgers’ total commitment a whopping $375 million, with $50 million of the deal to be paid via signing bonus. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the contract also has two opt-outs, but we don’t yet know when in the deal they occur.
This is a huge deal in several manners of speaking. First, it is literally a huge deal, the largest-ever contract for a pitcher, eking past Gerrit Cole’s $324 million pact from 2019. Between the $700 million guaranteed to Ohtani and the $325 million heading to Yamamoto, the Dodgers have committed well over $1 billion dollars to free agents (spread out over the next decade-plus) already this offseason. For context, in 2019, the Royals sold for $1 billion. The Dodgers’ estimated payroll for 2024 now stands at $285 million, $50 million more than their 2023 mark.
Here are Dan’s ZiPS projections for Yamamoto. He passed along that the projection system would recommend a 12-year, $320 million deal for him.
| Year | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 14 | 7 | 3.52 | 26 | 26 | 171.3 | 130 | 67 | 22 | 35 | 167 | 118 | 3.8 |
| 2025 | 14 | 7 | 3.54 | 26 | 26 | 170.3 | 132 | 67 | 23 | 34 | 166 | 117 | 3.8 |
| 2026 | 14 | 7 | 3.54 | 26 | 26 | 173.0 | 135 | 68 | 23 | 33 | 168 | 117 | 3.8 |
| 2027 | 14 | 7 | 3.59 | 27 | 27 | 170.7 | 137 | 68 | 24 | 32 | 165 | 116 | 3.6 |
| 2028 | 14 | 7 | 3.69 | 27 | 27 | 170.7 | 140 | 70 | 25 | 32 | 163 | 113 | 3.4 |
| 2029 | 13 | 8 | 3.77 | 26 | 26 | 164.7 | 139 | 69 | 24 | 32 | 154 | 110 | 3.1 |
| 2030 | 12 | 8 | 3.78 | 24 | 24 | 157.3 | 134 | 66 | 23 | 31 | 145 | 110 | 3.0 |
| 2031 | 12 | 7 | 3.83 | 23 | 23 | 150.3 | 129 | 64 | 22 | 30 | 137 | 108 | 2.8 |
| 2032 | 11 | 7 | 3.88 | 22 | 22 | 141.3 | 123 | 61 | 21 | 29 | 126 | 107 | 2.5 |
| 2033 | 10 | 7 | 3.97 | 21 | 21 | 131.3 | 116 | 58 | 20 | 28 | 115 | 105 | 2.2 |
| 2034 | 9 | 6 | 4.15 | 19 | 19 | 121.3 | 109 | 56 | 19 | 27 | 104 | 100 | 1.8 |
| 2035 | 8 | 6 | 4.27 | 17 | 17 | 109.7 | 101 | 52 | 18 | 26 | 91 | 97 | 1.5 |
Projections systems like ZiPS tend to flatten and smooth the peaks and valleys of everyone’s performance, so think of this as a projected annual average for Yamamoto’s production. His peak years, which should begin immediately, are likely to be better than the front end of these projections.
To say that Yamamoto solidifies the Dodgers’ rotation is an understatement. He may be one of the 10 best starting pitchers on the planet right now, and he joins a staff that has recent-era Dodgers ace Walker Buehler returning from Tommy John surgery and also added monster-stuff righty Tyler Glasnow via trade with Tampa Bay. And Ohtani may be part of this rotation starting in 2025. If the Dodgers’ approach to 2023 was “Let the Kids Play,” their 2024 approach is “Let the Kids Fight for One of the Last Rotation Spots.” Promising young hurlers Bobby Miller, Emmet Sheehan, Gavin Stone, and other prospects will vie for the last two starting spots along with veteran Ryan Yarbrough. After injuries tore up their rotation last season and made them vulnerable in the playoffs, the Dodgers once again have the combination of depth and star power to contend, which will be even more true in 2025 if/when Ohtani and Dustin May return from their 2023 surgeries.
Yamamoto has been the best pitcher in Japan for the last several seasons, and he’s a virtual lock to be an impact MLB starter from the second he ties his spikes on our shores. In his walk year with Orix, he produced two more WAR than the next best NPB pitcher (Roki Sasaki) even though he threw 30 fewer innings (164) than he had in each of the last two seasons. He produced his third consecutive season with a sub-2.00 ERA, as well as a sterling 26.6% K%, 4.4% BB%, 53% GB%, a microscopic 1% HR/FB%, and a career-best 1.74 FIP.
A plus-plus on-mound athlete with consistent mid-90s arm strength, Yamamoto locates virtually all of his pitches at will and walked just 28 batters across 164 innings in 2023. His fastball (he averaged 95 mph but peaks in the 97–99 range) enjoys substantial in-zone whiff utility thanks to his velo, the rise/run shape and shallow angle of his heater, and his feel for locating it in the top third of the zone and above. After several consecutive seasons of decline, he showed an uptick in two-seamer usage in 2023, though his ground ball rate dropped four percentage points compared to prior years. His four-seamer pairs nicely with a nasty, old school, upper-70s curveball, which he uses to both get ahead of and finish hitters. A low-90s splitter is his best pitch and most-deployed secondary weapon. It has exceptional bat-missing drop and doesn’t need to be located precisely in order to play. A more pedestrian slider/cutter, which lives off of his consistent glove-side command, rounds out his repertoire.
Inextricably linked to Japanese pitching prospects are questions about how they’ll respond to a potential change in routine (a start once every five days instead of once a week) and how their breaking stuff will play upon transition to the lower-seamed MLB baseball. While these apply to Yamamoto, it’s plausible the Dodgers will parlay his combination of arm strength and feel for spin into a better hard slider, or variant thereof, so there is also some “good variance” around the way I’m projecting his breaking ball(s) here. The entire package is very reminiscent of peak Zack Greinke, as Yamamoto’s frame, delivery, stuff quality and command are all of that ilk. I cannot emphasize this enough: as good as his stuff is (and there have been pieces at other outlets that dive deeper into the quantifiable elements of his pitches using data from one WBC outing nine months ago; your mileage may vary as to how useful or instructive this is), his command and pitchability, the way he sequences and sets up pitches, elevate every single one of his offerings.
Consider Yamamoto’s performance in Game 6 of the NPB Series a month ago. A few days after the Hanshin Tigers knocked him around in Game 1, he threw a 138-pitch, 14-strikeout complete game to push the series to a decisive Game 7. In an environment where big league pitchers’ performance drops off after the opposing lineup has seen them three and four times, he was utterly dominant despite the Tigers seeing him for the fifth, sixth, and seventh times. This is a special individual, and he is young enough that he may still get a bit better as he enters his late-20s.
The Dodgers’ spending will likely be offset by the global marketing and television dollars from employing maybe the two best Japanese baseball players on the planet at the same time. If you’ve watched Angels games throughout the past half-decade, you’ve seen Japanese-language ads behind home plate or on the walls of the dugout. What Yamamoto is poised to earn throughout the next decade-plus is the going rate for a pitcher with his talent, but I can’t begin to fathom what kind of additional financial benefit the Dodgers might enjoy because of everything from jersey sales to broadcast and advertising dollars. We can bet it will be more significant than what the Angels enjoyed because of Ohtani, in part because Los Angeles has a dynamic duo to promote, and also because the Dodgers themselves are an iconic franchise.
Jay Jaffe and I wrote recently about how we think the Dodgers would be leaving themselves unnecessarily vulnerable if they didn’t address some of the uncertainty around their middle infield. But they’ve now added such high-end talent in other places that, in the wake of this signing, they feel close to invulnerable.
Eric Longenhagen is from Catasauqua, PA and currently lives in Tempe, AZ. He spent four years working for the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, two with Baseball Info Solutions and two contributing to prospect coverage at ESPN.com. Previous work can also be found at Sports On Earth, CrashburnAlley and Prospect Insider.
You know your team’s had a great offseason when their 3rd best acquisition is Tyler Glasnow…
I know that there’s a lot of speculation left on what more they could do, and they really could use a shortstop and maybe another back-end starter. But I think they are potentially done.
Somebody to reliably eat 150 innings would be so valuable for them and offset a lot of risk. Glasnow is an obvious risk, and Buehler is a total wild card at this point. Whether that’s a trade for Cease or just assuming a combo of Stone/Grove/Sheehan/Yarbrough is enough to fill out the end of the rotation remains to be seen.
If they do a 6-man rotation, they definitely need another arm. If not, they might be able to get by with Sheehan as the 5th starter and Stone as the 6th starter, but I wouldn’t want to bet on it.
a 6th starter is something that they’re likely to have in 2025
Yeah, I would guess that this year they just look for the depth because they will have some backend questions and Buehler returning from TJS with possibly some kind of workload limitations, and with the expectation that in a year they will be switching to the 6 man rotation you need with Ohtani anyway.
the value of a great rotation is attenuated by the lack of a great shortstop
Uh, have you considered their offense?
They can any of a dozen good glove zero offense SS in the minors and not blink.
Huh?
It feels like the Dodgers would have been a great home for Houser.
Not sure if they could have given up more than the immortal Coleman Crow though
That’s a foolish remark in the context of a foolish Mets move. Guys like Houser (and Taylor) are available every offseason for nothing but cash (cf Gibson, K.). Instead, the Mets decided to trade in Crow a starter with MOR upside (and even a little more, acc to Baseball America), of which they have none above Rookie ball, and in an era where MORs like Taijuan Walker and Jameson Taillon are getting 4/72 and 4/68.
It was hardly the worst move of the offseason, and it doesn’t matter that Crow probably has no more than a 15% chance of realizing his upside—it’s the sheer pointlessness of it that’s striking. Not what I expected of Stearns. That Mets fans are applauding the deal, almost wildly, reeks of desperation and a powerful misunderstanding of where the team is now.
I love Glasnow but let’s be real…he’s made 20+ starts ONE time. He’s pitched more than 100 innings TWICE.
That is an insane projection, to still be a 3 win pitcher in year 7 of the deal. That comes out to 35.3 WAR. Over the last 12 years only 9 pitchers have put up >35 WAR.
ZiPS is saying that is median outcome is that he will be a top 10 pitcher over the next decade. Just absolutely nuts.
From the writeup:
“Projections systems like ZiPS tend to flatten and smooth the peaks and valleys of everyone’s performance, so think of this as a projected annual average for Yamamoto’s production. His peak years, which should begin immediately, are likely to be better than the front end of these projections.”
Which means that the back end is likely to be worse than these projections.
All long term contracts are worse on the back end, and probably worse for pitchers. Such is mortality. But clearly, there were others willing to pay, so that’s simply the market for a superstar now. As Dan said I think in a chat recently, WAR/$ isn’t linear for that tier of player, and I don’t think you can evaluate the terms strictly on player performance (at least, from the team’s perspective; fan interest may vary).
But a pitcher at 25 with his stuff? And who’s performed in postseason situations, etc.? Yeah, I’m rolling those dice, especially if I’m the Dodgers and that’s the one guy I’m lacking. With apologies to Snell and Montgomery, who might make Yamamoto’s contract *combined* (and good for them!), he feels like a bona fide #1.
…but the frontend will be better?
I thought the purpose of ZiPS was to get such things right?
If ZiPS does have a peak-too-low and back-end-too-high bias, Dan should be ironing that out. Wouldn’t be more complicated than working out and adding a multiplier, I should think.
Has Dan himself said that ZiPS actually has this bias?
It’s more that it smooths out peaks and valleys. It cant just project a 0 WAR year because it doesnt know when he’s going to get injured (even though he probably will, as do all pitchers) so it smooths out along the averages by projecting declining IP.
Conversely it also doesnt know when he’s going to have a peak year where he’ll put up 5+ or 8+ WAR so instead you get three years of 3.8 projected in a row even though it’s extremely unlikely any pitcher would have that exact level of consistency
I don’t see why such smoothing out should lead to any front/back end bias. And again, if it does, a properly worked-out multiplier ought to be able to then erase that bias.
Which I thought is the point of ZiPS, and all projection systems.
The front/back end bias is age.
Correct – variation and smoothing apply to all years independently, so the author of the article kind of misses the point. Projections are not more likely to be low in the early years and high in later years. If that were a real-time feature, they would be adjusted to reflect that.
Thank you, Padraic. I just couldn’t see how it could be otherwise.
This is a very inconsistent and undefined usage of “bias,” which we’re each self-defining and therefore unable to agree/disagree about. ZiPS works exactly how Dan says it does and projects what it possibly can as accurately as it can.
But one thing it’s really good at is using comparisons to make judgments, and at generally being conservative about pitcher health, aging curves, etc. It doesn’t run on hype or what we *think* might happen. It’s not telling you what can and cannot happen; it’s telling you, based on all the inputted data available, what it thinks will happen.
ZiPS; it’s just like us (if we could think about it a million times)!
Don’t forget the opt-outs.
Odds are one comes after year six.
Correct, after 2029 (yr 6) and 2031 (yr 8) seasons according to Rosenthal.
That’s because he’ll be 31 in Year 7, haha!
This deal is as big of a no-brainer as there’s been in recent times.
Well, there’s the Ohtani deal.
The Trout extension.
Re-signing Judge.
Deals where the players holds (almost) all the cards.
Well this compares projections to results. The interesting comp (which might also reveal how good Yamamoto is) would be to see how many other pitchers are projected for 35+ WAR over the next 7 years.
He’ll only be 32
Looking forward to reading… “Dodgers spend 1.2 billion. How Steve Cohen’s spending is bad for baseball.”
Haven’t seen any Evan Drellich pieces with anonymous owners and gms saying the Dodgers need to play by the rules like we did last offseason with Cohen
Harder to write that column when it’s public knowledge Hal wouldn’t shell out another ~$2m/yr to get Yamamoto while Steve Cohen was willing to name any future children after him.
I think a lot of it came down to what Yamamoto felt was the best fit with the contracts offered being effectively the same. There is obviously a preference for the West Coast for most Japanese players. Also looking at organizations it hard to find any that are better run, consistently competitive and have best in class player support. If you had to choose between the same contract between the Mets and the Dodgers I think the rational choice is clear.
If Dodgers ownership had stolen billions of dollars from nurses and teachers we might get that column, but Crooked Cohen did that, not them. He deserves every piece of ugly he gets.
What?
Are you unaware that Crook Cohen stole billions of dollars from middle class workers to establish his wealth? Don’t worry, he gave the SEC their piece so that hardly anyone hears about it. You can see why the guy is such an enormous hero to many NYC types.
The government does the same and much worse. I mean Andrew Cuomo was a hero to much of ny types despite being culpable for the death of thousands in nursing homes and his horrible policies and laws.
The government isn’t trying to hide it’s past by buying a baseball team, and nobody liked Cuomo where I’m from albeit that’s a good piece from NYC.
Nobody liked Cuomo? He was elected and reelected numerous times even won an Emmy for his speeches while people ignored people dying in nursing homes thanks to him. Oh and republican and democrat politicians are way bigger pigs and criminals than Cohen.
LOL, but also this does point to a sort of interesting PR contrast — some teams/ownership groups are PR-savvy enough to play it both ways about putting a face on ownership, others aren’t. The Mets are basically stuck (by choice, obviously) with the image of Steve Cohen running around in a top hat and monocle with hundred-dollar bills spilling casually from his pockets. The Dodgers are sometimes Magic Johnson and sometimes a faceless abstract conglomerate, depending on what suits them. There’s no single person who sports fans will get mad at here, and you have to give them credit for that just as a matter of image management.
Excellent, excellent point here!
If I ever need a PR Guy or a Political Handler, I’ll be looking you up! (you work cheap, I assume?)
I mean, off the top of my head, I couldn’t tell you the name of the (controlling?) owner of the Dodgers, and certainly wouldn’t put a face to him. I know Magic is just an ornament as ownership goes, and I love that guy, so I can only imagine what your average LA fan thinks of him.
I find this much more of an issue. The Mets’ spending spree was funny because it was so ridiculous. This is just brutally, terribly effective and that’s scary.
Yeah, and given Cohen’s stated desire to build an org like the Dodgers, that has to look like a lot longer road now.
I mean this took 10+ years, if Cohen thought he could build a Dodgers-style organization in 24 months after purchase he was a moron.
You’re telling me an old, rich dude told himself he could single-handedly build a franchise because he was an old, rich dude…and it didn’t work!? Next you’ll be telling me not to vote for those guys in elections!
Being both a moron and a criminal makes me wonder why a single person could like Crooked Cohen, and yet forums like these yield many who find it easier to suckle at the teat of capital than to stand on principle of what makes for a heinous human being. It’s nauseating. The guy should be under state-mandated torture indefinitely.
(to be fair I dont know that Cohen IS a moron, because I don’t know that he thought it would actually happen that fast. It’s entirely possible that Cohen is in the spend-to-maintain-relevance phase, that the Dodgers engaged in in the 2012-2016 era with players like Adrian Gonzalez, because he just got the guy he thinks can be his Andrew Friedman about a month ago)
That doesn’t mean Cohen isn’t a crappy dude, but we don’t know much about what he really thinks – he may not actually expect this to be a quick turnaround the way that Mets fans did. If he did, he is as dumb as they are. But there’s no real way to know – he’s going to talk like that because it’s what they want to hear, regardless of what he actually thinks.
That’s more fair than my thought that he is just a dumb fan who thinks all their ideas are great and you can spend your way out of every problem. Mets fans would be seig heiling right now if that’s what it took to get rid of the Wilpons and I’m not sure things would look all that different.
It’s always surprising how callously people compare others to Nazis. Was it necessary for this topic in the slightest.
Preach brother sandy
Tampa Bay savvy with NYY budgets.
And above average scouting and development.
Brutally *efficient* woud be my adjective.
Maybe on MLB.com or ESPN, but I’ve yet to see an article of that ilk on FanGraphs.
Hard to think of an outlet that’s more openly in favor of increased owner spending than FG.
As they damn well should be!
If you remember last year’s griping over the Mets’ spending, you also remember the griping over the Dodgers passing on big name FAs to save their money for Ohtani, right?
Also, contrast the ages of the Dodgers new players with who the Mets signed. Ohtani is in his prime, Yamamoto is entering it.
Ohtani is being paid $46M a year: $36M as a hitter (Judge level) and $10M as a top pitcher coming off TJ). Yamamoto is being paid like a younger Gerit Cole.
Is either contract exorbitant?
There’s risk in both but both are premium players getting paid market rates not 40-ish big name veterans.
The Mets paid for track records and names and the Dodgers paid for projections.
Different strokes.
Mets 2023 CBT hit: 375 mil
Dodgers 2024: ~275mil
Sorry your team didn’t spend the money well
Not worried about him getting hurt with a delivery that basically involves lifting his front leg about 8 inches off the ground, extending his arm straight back, and throwing?
Hmmmm. Looks like a lot like Tommy Hanson to me.
And this is a guy who’s 5’9, 175. Couldn’t be me giving him 325 M
Obviously couldn’t be you if you can’t be bothered to pay for membership here.
Maybe finish half the prospect lists before the season starts and more people would do that
Just go to Baseball America if that’s all you care about
Oooo, the green “member” flex guy. Gimme a break.
You’re right it couldn’t. I don’t think any of us slumming around these boards could be banging 9-figure checks even if we wanted to.
Of course we could. They’d just bounce and we’d be sued for fraud.
The ladies at my bank would just pass around the check, share a hearty laugh, and offer me a lollipop
I understand why this is getting downvoted – nobody wants to hear a raincloud right now – but it is a nonstandard, all-arm motion.
I personally agree with this approach to conditioning (pitchers should not be using free weights, at least not upper body), but classically you’d like to see more follow through for a guy that throws that hard.
Pedro was (nominally) 5’11” and 175.
Really hoped the Mets would sign him but hey it may be that he wanted the Dodgers and possibly gave them the last crack. The Dodgers were already a top team now if they can mostly stay healthy they can win 110 or so games and then lose to a 85 win team in the nlds I’m half joking there.
One of my takeaways from Andy Martino’s reporting was Hal Steinbrenner owner of a team worth 6-7 billion dollars wasn’t willing to get into a bidding war with the Mets and the Dodgers that would annoy me if I was a Yankee fan. It also makes it unlikely that the Yankees retain Soto when he becomes a free agent if Hal sticks to not wanting to be in bidding wars with those teams.
As a Yankee fan, I’m ok with this. The Yankees have every intention of signing Soto and not being outbid for him; if they don’t sign Soto because somebody else offers him $30 million more, I will be extremely upset. They offered Yamamoto $300 million, which is a whole lot of money for somebody who’s never thrown a major league pitch. The history of guys with Yamamoto’s frame who can pitch like him is basically just Pedro Martinez and Tim Lincecum, and signing anybody ***through their age 36 season*** on the hopes that they can be Pedro Martinez is… asking a lot.
He just needs to be Pedro long enough to opt-out. 😁
Hal wouldn’t pay an add’l ~$2m/yr over 12 yrs to get the greatest pitching FA in who knows when; if I’m Juan Soto, do I see myself in pinstripes past July?
But think of the Yankees’ profit margins, David!!!
None of us understand how hard Hal worked to be born into a rich family.
He earned this when his sister divorced his father’s preferred successor, who had actually paid his dues in baseball ops.
I kind of think that if the money is close, the Dodgers feel like a much “safer” team to go to. They reliably win, and don’t have nearly the same nonsense as the New York teams do.
100% agree – if all else is equal, go to world-class organization with excellent leadership, engaged owners, and a long track record of recent excellence.
The Yankees would have had to blow LA out of the water for Yamamoto to give them serious consideration.
And no drama.
LA sports media barely knws the Dodgers exist. 😇
…what? this is just a bizarre and inaccurate take…
Eh?
Mookie gets a lot less media smoke than Tobias Harris…who’s the third best player on the third best team in Philly.
Northeast is a different game, media-wise
LA sports *media* is far from Philly, Boston, or especially NYC, when it comes to baseball. Fans are fans but Dodger drama went away with McCourt.
I mean its true that LA doesn’t do sports drama like the insane NE corridor, but it’s also true that LA (and its media) know and often love Dodger and Laker players, quite widely. They just don’t treat them the same way. In NY/BOS/PHI, high profile comes with intense criticism. In LA, it largely does not.
People react differently to stars, because LA is a city filled with them and people are much more inured to ‘oh, hey, famous person’ in casual life.
The fans yes, the media?
Other than echoing team PR what else do they do?
The thing is that LA does have people who write like NY sports media, its just that they’re widely disliked so it doesn’t drive conversation about the players and teams
Conversely, the Yanks have Cole and need Soto more.
The time to gripe is when/if they get out-bid on Soto FA.
I’m sure they’ll make a “generous offer,” but won’t want to be caught in a “bidding war” when they’ll need that money to resign Volpe in 4 years!
That assumes keeping Volpe in 4 years is worth letting Soto go.
He’s useful but I wouldn’t call 2023 a breakout.
Soto is a generational talent, young, and they can afford him. They can afford both even if Volpe explodes. Or Dominguez.
Who is signed through 26? Judge, Cole, and…?
Oh, I was just referring to their stated reason for not going after Machado or Harper:
They needed to save the money so they’d be able to sign the “Baby Bombers” like Gary Sanchez and Miguel Andujar.
The Yankees wouldn’t let themselves get outbid for Judge; they won’t let themselves get outbid for Soto either. If they do, that will be a serious sign of problems in the organization.
The Dodgers have won 100+ games 5 of the last six full seasons, and in the pandemic -shortened season they won at a .717 clip, and they add the two most coveted free agents of the off-season. Yikes.
When the Dodgers won 100 games this season, Dave Roberts’ winning percentage with the Dodgers went down.
MoY isn’t an award worth getting riled up about, but he absolutely deserved it given the rotation destruction, Urias nightmare, falling behind the Giants…say what you will about how the Dodgers operate, but you never hear any leaks or discontent from the clubhouse, and if I were gonna sign some lifetime deal, you’d bet that would matter to me.
It is fairly hilarious that Roberts has one MOY award and its from probably the least interesting and least-talented team of his tenure. Of course, it’s also his debut (2016).
138 pitches in a game last month, huh?
Johan Santana threw 134 pitches in the no-hitter that effectively ended his career. The MLB high this year was 117 pitches by Justin Verlander.
That’s… a lot of wear on an arm you just threw a third of a billion dollars at.
NPB works differently with a 6 man rotation and a longer leash on the starters.
Yamamoto actually has less wear and tear on his body compared to Darvish or Tanaka.
Innings in their last 3 seasons in NPB
Darvish 182->202->232 (8.0 IP/G)
Tanaka 226->177->212 (7.9 IP/G)
Yamamoto 194->193->171 (7.3IP/G)
So do Japanese starters suffer more arm damage or less arm damage? That’ll answer the question right good.
Less is more likely.
As I said above, they pace themselves differently.
As in they don’t “go as hard as they can as long as they can”.
A) He’s 25.
B) NPB pitchers have much more rest in between starts than MLB pitchers do.
C) Trying to find a silver lining to Hal being a pennywise, pound-foolish eejit is a waste of emotional energy.
He’s Kendall Roy.
That’s all he’s ever been and all he’ll ever be.
Trust me, I am the last thing in the world from a Hal Steinbrenner fan; I think it’s atrocious the way he’s ruined his father’s legacy. After this disaster of a year, I was very worried about the Yankees making a bunch of moves just for the sake of making moves, and making bad ones – I was totally expecting a $250 million contract to Bellinger rather than a Soto trade because Steinbrenner refused to part with Oswald Peraza or something stupid like that.
The truth is that after the Carlos Rodon signing I’m a bit gunshy of the Yankees signing pitchers to giant contracts just because the pitcher is at the top of the free agency market. A lot of pitchers just cannot pitch in NYC, and throwing that much money at somebody who’s never pitched in the majors is nerve-wracking. What happens when your shiny new starting pitcher with a dozen-year contract turns out to be Sonny Gray or Javier Vazquez or Carl Pavano or Rodon or etc. etc. etc.? I’d rather see money put into offense than pitching, especially risky pitching.
Sonny Gray is the 10th best pitcher since 2019, so I think that would be an ok outcome
Which was exactly my point – a whole bunch of pitchers (like the ones I named, including Gray) are great before pitching for the Yankees; great after pitching for the Yankees; and terrible with the Yankees. It’s difficult to live life unable to go out to a restaurant without having dozens of retorted following you down the sidewalk everywhere you go.
The Yankees gave out what I think most would argue is one of the if not the best big pitching contract of all time (Cole). They’re not all gonna like that, though. Cole’s deal, and the Scherzer/Nats deal, are probably the two best free agent pitcher deals ever signed by teams. (you can throw in Kershaw’s original extension if you want to do best big pitcher deals period, but that wasn’t open market).
Oh, I remember Carlpalooza; my uncle is *still* mad
Japan is different.
They don’t throw as hard as often (more like 70’s MLB) and pitch once a week.
And his training regime is…unique.
They do physicals for a reason.
I have mixed feelings about this. But all of them are negative.
On the one hand, the prices for starting pitching are totally out of control. He’s a near-guaranteed playoff starter and he’s super young, but he still hasn’t pitched in MLB yet. This is probably $100M where anyone would have predicted he would end up before the offseason starts. There’s huge risk.
On the other hand, I hate that the Dodgers are buying their way into being the favorites for the title. The Dodgers are paying the salaries of four players this year that is larger than smaller-market teams can spend on their entire payroll. There are some major competitive balance issues that come into play when a team can do this.
I realize that these contradict each other, so I’m fine with that.
There would be huge risk for other teams. The teams that are truly flush will not really experience any consequences if a contract like this busts.
I don’t think the issue is that the Dodgers spend. The issue is that a lot of other teams won’t. Sure, some can’t, but “won’t” is a bigger issue than “can’t” league wide.
Yep.
The Dodgers don’t have the highest revenue or the richest ownership group in the league.
They’re just willing to spend money, and smart about how they spend it.
Huh? They have the second highest revenue at $605M (Yankees at $657M) and are owned by Mark Walter of Guggenheim Partners, who is worth $5.9B.
They’re willing to spend money because they have it.
…
…
Yes?
Thank you for providing numbers showing that:
They don’t have the highest revenue.
They don’t have the richest owner.
They don’t even own their RSN, like FSG does!
They are, however, willing to spend what they do have, and they spend it intelligently.
That’s why their revenues have increased so much since Guggenheim Partners took over.
Key word: intelligently.
If the Dodgers get gripes for their spending, its for the way they play games with contracts (buying bad contracts, not signing lonnnggg contracts before this year, dipping under the tax limits from time to time.)
This year they broke open the piggy bank but to pull it off they had to have something in the piggy bank.
The Dodgers simply use the rules to their best advantage.
Intelligent.
Below is straight off of wiki for what it’s worth if you search SNLA which is the Dodgers RSN.
“Spectrum SportsNet LA and Spectrum Deportes LA is an American regional sports network jointly owned by the Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball team and Charter Communications through its acquisition of Time Warner Cable in May 2016″
This depends a lot on the team. Pretty much every team can spend another $30M-$40M in payroll more than they are currently, but I can’t think of many teams that can spend like this.
It might be 30-40m on *average*, but a lot of the teams at the bottom could spend another 100m.
The teams at the bottom are the ones who can spend something like $40M more. It’s teams like the Yankees and Red Sox and Cubs and Giants that can spend $100M above what they’re doing or more. And the Mariners, apparently.
That’s hot garbage, Trombone. Let’s play a game. Here’s a list of the guaranteed
revenue of MLB teams:
Share of National TV contract (roughly 60m/team)
Local media rights (call this min 40m, I don’t believe any team is beneath that)
Revenue Sharing/luxury tax payor distribution: this varies, but for the teams with the least media, its upwards of 60-70m.
Whatever they make at the gate + their share of merchandising
If a team simply committed their media and luxury tax revenue to payroll, every single team could run 140-160m in payroll. Absent possibly just the Rays, I do not believe any teams’ gate + merchandise share would be insufficient to pay non-player expenses + provide some profit margin. Even if you are extra conservative here and you say that teams keep their first 30m or so of local TV for those purposes, you’re still looking at 120-130m in viable payroll.
There are teams paying under 70m. Only a couple of those teams have any sort of argument that they have significant enough challenges at the gate to make this model not work (TB/OAK). Even the Pirates are drawing 1.5m fans a year at an average 25-30 dollars a ticket.
Imagine a world where there was a salary cap in baseball, in exchange for a floor (this won’t happen, I know). What would that floor be? It would be like *180 or 190 million*. Of course, that won’t happen not just because the MLBPA opposes it, but because the 30 owners aren’t actually all aligned behind a cap proposal: The LA/NY/BOS etc group oppose it because it limits their spending, and the PIT/OAK/etc dregs of baseball oppose it because *they are pocketing 9 figures annually in profit on the back of their collective league payments while not investing in their rosters*.
It is way, way more than 30-40m. Some of these teams are operating at or below 50% of the payroll they could afford. They are an embarrassment.
Teams have costs beyond player payroll. Everyone else’s salary (including front office), travel (lotta private flights and a lotta hotels in there), MiLB/the draft, basic overhead, medical, debt servicing (especially if the team has recently been sold), etc. All that adds up.
I have no idea what local media rights are for teams, but $40m/year sounds high for some.
I don’t begrudge any team’s ability to make a profit – that is the point of a business, after all. The difference is that NYY or LAD can run $300m payrolls and still probably profit tens to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Whereas my guess is that the smallest teams (TBR, OAK, etc.) turn into losers a lot closer to $100m than you think.
You’re not wrong about other expenses, but I was simplifying – there are also other revenue streams. For example, all advertising revenue isn’t shared, and I didn’t mention that because it varies widely – but it’s not like it’s 500k, either.
Brewers’ media rights were basically
lowest in the league a couple of years ago at ~21M/yr average, but at the tail end of a long contract.
They were reported at being around $35M/yr, when they set the new contract in ’21.
Any team below that level are probably about to negotiate a new contract themselves.
I told my wife yesterday about the Yamamoto signing and said “the Dodgers basically print money”. The amount of money that is flowing in from Ohtani and now Yamamoto…and even before them, is staggering.
This is really where I come down on this, ST. I am a Bucs’ fan and I know they can spend more than they do, but if the Dodgers can spend like this and still make 5 times the profit of the Bucs, then what would point be of Nutting opening up his wallet? Say the Bucs’ can really operate at a payroll of like $130 mil/year without going into the red. It would appear that they could comfortably spend another $50 mil/ year on payroll. But if LA can just outbid them for every reasonably good FA, they’re really is no point to spending more just to spend more.
Yeah!!! What has spending over $100m done for AZ???
Lad doesn’t outbid on every good fa, Rangers just won a ws by buying players. They’ve outbid on 2 good fa’s. Stop being such a baby. Maybe Pirates don’t have resources to build that type of 100 win dynasty but 88 wins gets you in the playoffs.
Not the point, jabroni. What’s Nutting’s incentive to spend?
To get good players, win baseball games, and win the WS.
This might come as a surprise to you, but Ohtani and Yamamoto have never been in the playoffs let alone won a WS.
It’s possible to win a WS and spend on good players without specifically having Yamamoto on a $300mil contract or Ohtani on a $600mil one. In fact, to date every single WS winner has achieved this feat.
Besides that, it is the point, and you’re just wrong about LAD being able to acquire every decent player in baseball, which was your point and is wrong.
Really the guy who has never pitched in MLB has never reached the World Series. Shocked I tell ya, shocked!
Pride?
Respect for himself?
Respect for his community?
Growing the value of his main asset, so that he can take larger zero-interest loans against it down the line?
The 2023 World Series was between a pair of mid-market teams, and it’s not like the Astros or Braves are the world’s craziest spenders, either.
At some point, you gotta think the competitive ball clubs aren’t gonna want to send money to the Nuttings of the world so they can just stick in their pocket, and if the owners are ever divided in that way, you could very well see something like relegation or certain owners being *encouraged* to sell majority shares, etc.
I don’t think it’s likely, but a salary floor, as others have said, will only mean that they’ll sign whatever combination of 26 players is the lowest payroll allowable with no regard to wins while constraining player salaries at the low and high ends (hurting the most vulnerable and improving competitiveness not one bit).
The total dollars is a lot higher than the projections but the AAV is a only a couple mil higher than expected.
Now, is that because his age allowed teams to go long with less worry or because they’re doing what teams have started to do the last couple years by flattening lux tax numbers with extra years at the end…or both?
I’d also argue this is just pitching prices coming back to the norm. David Price signed for 7/217 (31 AAV!) back in 2016. Now, teams shied away from megadeals like that for a few years because the risk with pitchers is so high (Price as an example) but the risk can be worth the reward (Zack Wheeler).
Also: the opt outs.
The Dodgers aren’t betting on him being good at 36…they are betting he’ll be good enough to opt out. Then they get to reevaluate him and either renegotiate or let him walk. The long term bet is Ohtani, not Yamamoto.
Not more than smaller markets CAN spend, just more than they are WILLING to spend.
People say this all the time in the comments section on the site and it seems to be disconnected from the actual workings of most small market teams. Pretty much every team in baseball can run higher payrolls but not anything like this. A team like the Brewers can probably spend $140M on payroll in a year. But there’s no way they can give out money like this.
At their last peak, Cleveland ran $140M and had to cut back right away.
And that was shrinking the ballpark seating and raising prices.
And this year they are looking at a $40M hole in local TV and a court drama that keeps getting dragged out.
Bad ownership is part of it but not everything. Dolan only makes a bad situation worse. Even under Jacobs when the team drew from all Ohio and Pennsylvania, indiana, and even Michigan for its string of sellouts, the team was routinely outbid for the Top FA pitchers.
Small budget teams limits aren’t all self-imposed.
Basically every team could’ve afforded Wheeler at $118mil/5yrs or Nola at $172mil/7yrs.
As far as revenue parity goes most expansion focus is on new areas/markets but we could use more teams in the huge LA & NY markets. New teams there maybe wouldn’t directly bring in new fans but would take revenue from Dodgers/Mets/Yankees. Still would have owner wealth inequity and name recognition but could make a difference in taking money from the richest teams w/o taking money from players.
. Small market owners should focus less on salary cap than repealing regional monopolies & rights imo.
“As far as revenue parity goes most expansion focus is on new areas/markets but we could use more teams in the huge LA & NY markets. New teams there maybe wouldn’t directly bring in new fans but would take revenue from Dodgers/Mets/Yankees”
Bringing in additional teams to LA & NY is only guaranteed to be a win for fans of other teams in the league living in those cities because tickets for the additional team’s home games will be considerably cheaper than the Dodgers and Yankees.
We’ve seen this already in Los Angeles with the Clippers and Chargers games being overrun by the opposing teams fans and I’d imagine it’s happening in Brooklyn with the Nets as well.
At the same time, Lakers and Knicks games are still very hot tickets because they’re the Alpha Dog in their respective cities and even the Rams (who’ve only be back in LA for eight years after leaving LA for one of the worst markets in the NFL for twenty-nine years) are way more popular than the Chargers.
This is about 100m different but its partly because its so long. Consider the difference between the Dodgers (325/12) and Yankees (300/10). I would not be surprised if that tack-on is not the first time in the process this happened, and the original deal started at like 7/240 or something, which wouldnt have been that far from where he was expected to be. But because he’s 25, it was easy to keep adding years to increase the total and decrease the AAV.
I think this is easy to justify now that we have seen the deal for the reasons you mention but if anyone is saying they had anything above $250M I would want to see the receipts. I kept telling people he was going to top $200M, and I didn’t see anyone predict the total value to be over $225M. And the reason for that is because the money for starting pitching is much hotter than we expected.
Like I said, 240 is higher than expected but I think something in the 200m range was considered reasonable. It went a bit higher, but a lot of the topline number is just being driven by driving the contract length out to lower the CBT hit, which is easy to do because he’s so abnormally young for a free agent starting pitcher. For the part we all expected him to be getting a contract for, he’s above expectations but by a lot less than you would think at first glance. Ben had 7/196. Crowdsource had 7/175. I think Ben was closer to most other pundit predictions. I’d suggest this contract basically looks like Yamamoto started at 7/240, then in ensuing rounds 3/60 and 2/25 got tacked on to lengthen/increase the topline and reduce the AAV.
Like, this is really obvious with the final NYM/NYY/LAD offers: Yankees stopped at 300/10, Mets and Dodgers went 2/25 (which is a paltry commitment!) on top of that. I would bet this happened one other time in the process as well, even if it was before the offers were presented, as teams looked for ways to maximize the total dollar value while reducing their CBT exposure.
“The prices for starting pitching are totally out of control.” Precisely why, if I had depth of cost-controlled/certain starting pitchers, I’d be soliciting trade offers today.
I don’t know you do also need pitching to win games. But if I wasn’t a legitimate playoff team, I would be trading all my pitching.
Depends on their age and the state of the farm.
Of course. But I wasn’t talking about trading a rotation, just a starting pitcher, and only if I was holding depth to work with.
Wait a bit.
Milwaukee and Cleveland are. Miami, too.
Once the big FA pitchers are gone, they’ll see who calls *them*.
Will the Dodgers be great, again, the regular season? Absolutely. What will happen in the playoffs? Who knows, at least they are in the tournament but the MLB playoffs are a complete crapshoot.
I’m sure he’ll be great, but wouldn’t it be hilarious and delightful if he’s just a complete train wreck, walking guys, plunking guys, giving up homers that leave the stadium?
Maybe they will send him to AAA to “work on some things.” A man can dream.
The former Yankee fan in me is now hoping he becomes the next Kei Igawa!
Last time I rooted for a player to fail was Daisuke Matsuzaka.
…because I was literally twelve.
I only root against bad people: Ozuna, Bauer, Deshaun Watson, etc
That’s where I’m at.
I’d speed up if I saw Watson in a crosswalk.
There’s a huge diminishing marginal return to signing both Ohtani and Yamamoto in terms of marketing to Japanese consumers. If signing Ohtani makes the Dodgers Nippon Nancy’s favorite team, adding Yamamoto isn’t going to make them her doubly-favorite team. And presuming Nancy’s already a baseball fan, nor is it going to make her give up her allegiance to the Tokyo Giants (or whomever) for the Dodgers.
The extra $$$ will still be there, just not like they would be if the Yankees (or whomever) signed up their initial Japanese star.
I mean, is there? Based on what? I suppose this could be true, but it’s pure speculation.
The economic Law of Diminishing Returns. About as speculative as the supply/demand curve.
I disagree. You’re ignoring how much more efficient it is for the Japanese media–and tourists–to be able to focus on one area, which is easily accessible via direct flights, already has a large Japanese media presence, and is capable of growing the stream. You think Yamamoto would have drawn more out of towners to Queens than to LA? I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that or to believe that the Dodgers and massive LA media opportunities (theme parks, movie studios, etc.) aren’t going to make them bigger than they would be apart.
Not true. Let’s say there are 100 Japanese fans who follow MLB and want to root on a true Japanese superstar in America. If Yamamoto had gone to NYY you might have 65 of them rooting for Ohtani and 35 for Yamamoto. You get them both, and you get all 100 fans. (A simplistic example to be sure, but signing both ensures the Dodgers that those fans don’t divide their allegiances)
I think they signed them both primarily because they were the best options available and because they could.
Which, of course, makes it especially ridiculous that the Yankees wouldn’t pony up an extra two years to sign him through age-36.
Guggenheim Partners is an elite global investment company, with $300 billion in assets under management. They probably have a better idea of the potential financial returns for their investment in these players. And they are running the franchise as a business for profit, not like a billionaire playing with a train set.
This is just simply not true. I’ll use my own experience as a USMNT fan as an example. There are American soccer players playing at top tier clubs all over Europe now, and while I have some passing interest in the teams that employ one American (Dortmund, Monaco, Celta Vigo), I am far more invested in the teams that employ two (Juventus, Milan, Fulham, Venezia), and I religiously watch/follow the team at the top of the Eredivisie that employs three Americans (PSV). There may be some Japanese fans that are Giants fans or Mariners fans through and through, but I bet many, many Japanese fans root for MLB teams that employ the best and the most Japanese players.
It takes the Dodgers from a priority watch for Japanese baseball fans (with Ohtani) to an absolute must-watch when Yamamoto’s on the mound. There’s a bit of a multiplier effect.
I was 14 in 1995 and living in LA; it’s weird to me how much it’s been forgotten, but Nomomania was real for years (dude threw a no hitter in Colorado! Against a legit lineup!). Seattle and New York overtook them for a long time, but I’ve been thinking all week about whether or not we’re going to see a Hideo Nomo reunion sometime soon.
Not a diminishing return. More like a minimum hurdle if LAD wants to build out both their Japanese language media product – and a recruiting pipeline for future NPB players.
Had Yamamoto signed somewhere else, any Japanese market for LAD would have been split in year one. Now LAD owns the whole pie and someone else has to create share from scratch
I think one real benefit was not needing to top Cohen’s offer but instead merely match it. I think this really may extend to future posting scenarios for NPB players like Sasaki.
“The money is the same, but one of these teams has one/more of your most talented and celebrated WBC teammates.”
Crazy acquisitions. I’m curious to see if a Bellinger reunion is in the cards. Especially since I’m getting major AAAA vibes from Miguel Vargas. That outfield defense would be sick with Outman, Bellinger, and Heyward covering the field. With how good their pitching is on paper the potential for that is wild.
They cut Bellinger because they didn’t believe in him.
One good season won’t change that.
And a 90%+ luxury tax surcharge only reinforces it.
Also those batted ball stats look brutal
In Dan’s chat, he wrote that ZIPS suggested a 9/252 deal. Why the disparity?
A) It’s the open market.
B) There’s not much of a “disparity” between $28m AAV through age-33 and $27m AAV through age-36.
A) I’m not sure what point you’re making.
B) I guess it’s subjective whether that’s a “disparity” (scare quotes and all), but it seems pretty significant to me. Dan’s chat projection says to pay him $252 mil through 9 years, the one in this article says keep paying him for another 3/$68 mil. To me, that’s enough difference to make me curious.
You need to look up what the term “scare quotes” means, haha.
But, again, a bidding war for a 25 year old resulting in a few extra years in return for a slightly lower AAV is just deeply unsurprising.
I’m not deeply (scare itals aside) surprised that the bidding led to something higher than Dan’s prediction in his chat. I’m asking why Dan/ZIPS said 9/252 in the chat yesterday and that Dan/ZIPS says 12/320 today.
I think Dan forced ZiPS to use 12 years to match the actual contract.
…what are “scale itals,” haha?
I was using italics for emphasis…just like I was using quotation marks to indicate that I was directly quoting a word used in the comment to which I was replying.
Anyway, as everyone has repeatedly told you:
He’s so young that adding years was less painful than adding AAV, in terms of crafting a winning bid.
I think it’s pretty obviously a combination of multiple teams being willing to pay him so much and his age. The Mets certainly drove up both of those numbers alone out of desperation.
It’s mostly the extra years. He got that because he’s the best pitcher on the free agent market this time around, because he’s young, and because there’s no draft pick compensation for him. That means literally any team with a lot of money had a reason to pursue him.
Sasaki is going to get $500mm
The hype due to his perfecto action is well deserved but honestly Yoshi is the better of the two IMO
Sasaki is more electric and has less miles on the arm. but for sure Yamamoto has the results.
The real question will be whether he really waits all the way to 25 or gets impatient like Ohtani and comes earlier. Imagine the screaming if he came over in the international amateur category and was like well I can’t make any money anyway lets go play with my pals until free agency.
Eh, Roki’s early career is at least as good as Yamamoto’s through age 21.
He needs to stop getting injured – that “deGrom of Japan” comp is a bit too literal at the moment – and Yamamoto took a leap starting at age 22, but it’s very possible he’s a more coveted property when he comes over.
Better build, higher end fastball, success is more translatable with his pure strikeout ability. I expect some of Yamamoto’s HR prevention and pitchability to translate to MLB but I’m very doubtful he’s going to have any full seasons with 2 HR allowed like he did in NPB this year.
Its clear part of that HR/9 number is driven by approach differences between leagues: Senga’s stats all got worse in MLB, but he *struck out more guys* than he did in NPB because MLB players are less contact oriented. His BB% went up 40%, his HR/9 doubled, but his K rate improved because all 3 of those things reflect different contact vs slug valuation by his opponents. Yamamoto will see the same.
I presume Dan’s ZiPS-worthy contract estimate was sans the opt-outs? Doesn’t Dan have a rough-but-reasonable estimator of what such opt-outs are worth?
Was Dan’s ZiPS-worthiness also sans any posting fees? If ‘yes’ both there and on the opt-outs, this would then be quite the ZiPS overpay, would it not?
As a baseball fan, I’m excited to see what he does in MLB. He was throwing up reliever ERAs in 160+ IP. Even with an aggressive adjustment for the move from NPB -> MLB, he’s got a chance to put up Cy Young caliber numbers.
As a Yankee fan, I’m not sure who exactly to be angry at, but I’m definitely angry at someone. Definitely not Yamamoto (that seems petty; he’s going to make the choices that are best for him and his career).
EDIT: I think the way most Yankee fans’ll feel about it is the Dodgers just out-Yankee’d the Yankees. And that doesn’t go over too well in the Bronx…
I doubt the Dodgers think that they “out-Yankeed the Yankees,” in fairness.
That would be like Man City viewing their accomplishments through the frame of Man United, at this point.
The Yankees haven’t won a pennant during the tenure of the Dodgers’ current ownership.
I tend to think the Yankees would have had to go much higher to win. The Mets matched the Dodgers and didn’t win, so Yamamoto had a preference. So the Yankees go to $340M or whatever, Yamamoto gives the Dodgers a chance to match because he clearly wants to be there, they probably match, and he’s a Dodger anyway.
This was probably lost when the Yankees didn’t win any titles in the past 14 years to add cachet and when Los Angeles was founded 3000 miles closer to Japan, with better weather.
Also, if there was any truth to the rumor weeks ago that Yamamoto preferred to play with another Japanese player, then the Yankees were always at a disadvantage and the Dodgers and Mets at various degrees of advantage (either the same, or even more to the Dodgers given that Ohtani and Yamamoto seem to have a pre-existing relationship, while I have no information about whether that’s true with Senga)
Depending on how you look at it, the Yanks did go higher: 10 years at $30M, no backloading, and an opt out after 5 years.
He could’ve taken $150M clean and go FA at 30.
Chose LA instead.
To be accurate, LA is only ~1250 miles closer to Tokyo (5480 vs. 6740) on the great circle.
Yamamoto has basically been doing peak Kershaw shit to the NPB, obviously with a different pitch selection, but that’s what the results look like.
The Yankees are lunging here and there very much like the Mets. They just dealt good young pitching for the right to pay a 4-5 win DH in 2022-23 around $33m in 2024. The signed Rodon for $162m because Hal was booed at Yankee Stadium. I’d be angry at him, and at Cashman.
The Dodgers have a shot at beating the 2001 Mariners’ W-L record. Bonkers.
Hi Fangraphs, as a fan of a small market team, I’m pissed! League realignment needs to divide the big market teams in one league and the small market teams in the other and the winner of each meet in the World Series. Relegating small market teams to being basically farm teams for the big spenders! The only hope ends up being the big market, big spenders JINX as small market fans give up in despair.
Perfect name for this kind of comment
Isn’t the revenue from jersey sales shared across all 30 teams? The Dodgers will make advertising money from having the best Japanese players, but the increased jersey sales will benefit all the other teams too.
Ad revenue and broadcast rights are team specific.
You’re both right; advertising revenue is not shared, but whatever merchandise sales the Ohtani/Yamamoto combo drive in Japan will be shared equally.
He also has a first class changeup he throws off the 2 seam. SMH.
Yeah was going to say, he’s clearly throwing a circle change on a few pitches in the linked vid. And it looks like a pretty good one (at least those in the vid).
Eking past? Oof. That’s not English.
Two things:
– $325 over 12 years a half decade after Cole signed is not a bigger contract
– A bajillion dollars over a gajillion years is not a bajillion dollars
I expect league owned media for morons to perpetuate the lies of Business (all hail), but yous guys? Financial literacy is a problem and those that own our media and existence want it to remain one!
Also, there is a lot of unreported backloading…
…plus a big ($50M) signing bonus.
(NYY bid $30M flat every year for ten years, no gimmicks. He passed.)
There’s been a lot of talk about Ohtani tax minimization, but Yamamoto is also saving over $8M in state and federal taxes by taking $50M upfront before moving to California and before the federal tax rate goes up in 2025.
Big baseball contracts are complicated and the true value is hard to tease out.
Never complicated to the free and brave citizens of ‘Merica: all are taken at face Value as Disney reports it and are an overpayz
That part is really where the Dodgers are able to flex the Ohtani deferral: since they don’t have to start funding his deferred payments until 2026, their cash flow to provide a huge up-front signing bonus is much better, and it’s something of value to Yamamoto who hasn’t got Ohtani’s promotional income
It doesn’t show up in the CBT or anything but it is sure something that is easier to do due to Ohtani and that is very useful to Yamamoto.
Well I for one can’t wait to see both of them on the same team. I would want to see how his stuff plays before trying to change his breaking balls unless it’s to add a pitch that he only uses once and a while. His command and walk rate is amazing especially when combined with the velocity.
Dodgers had a huge need for starting pitching due to injuries, and free agency of players who they did not want to resign (Urias) or injured (Kershaw). This signing fills out their staff. I think they need to add some depth and innings because they can not count on having their starters pitch every five days. Ryan Yarbrough helps but doesn’t get them all the way there and they haven’t signed their annual reclamation project yet.
Dodgers are spoiling their fans with superstars.
no team is invulnerable….
I always think of my 2015 Nats when that kind of rhetoric gets thrown around
I think people getting upset about how much competitive imbalance this creates are forgetting that this is baseball, and this ridiculous Dodgers team still could very easily get bounced in the NLDS this year by an 85-win team.
I’m happy to see this. Big guaranteed money will bring the best athletic talent back to the game. The NFL’s hold on the American people has started to look shaky. We be could be looking at baseball’s next comeback
BTW this is all a setup so the league’s media can write about how you can’t buy winning every time the Dodgers lose or even fall behind a game. We’re going to see billions upons billions of gallons of content in this direction before the more official salary cap arrives in a CBA or two
Two things we should all keep in mind:
– Money is completely made up, largely to keep the dumb public’s dumb existence docile and limited
– We’re getting played the entire time by business and capital. That’s why they feel so confident reporting Ohtani and Yamamoto as a Bajillion dollars knowing it’s not but that the people – so free and so brave – will lap it up
It gets me – every single time money comes up – that ‘Mericans consider themselves the freest and bravest people in the history of history lol
I know they planned to spend money this offseason but this is the first time I remember the Dodgers putting themselves in a position where it feels like they were forced to make a move. For the first time it felt like they had some glaring holes in their roster that needed some major attention. I’m not sure “desperation” is the right word but something close to it. Maybe necessity? They committed to this course of action and had to continue no matter the cost.
Merry Xmas fangraphs
Continued demonstration of why the NFL continues to blow MLB out of the water every year by increasing margins in every measureable aspect of popularity. Ticket revenue, TV revenue, TV ratings, whatever the yardstick. A regular season NFL game averages about 17 million viewers. A World Series game generates a little more than half of that. The NFL is designed to be competitive, the genius of Bert Bell continues to shine through 75 years later. MLB continuing to slide into irrelevance.
1) I’m a football fan (go niners!), but football is pretty much a US only sport. Baseball is truly international, both in players and viewership
2) youth participation is dropping in football due to injury/concussion issues
3) the salary cap and contract rules (non guaranteed) screw the players and guarantee profits to the owners in the NFL
4) the nfl isn’t more competitive, it’s just different
Not sure the NFL is the model to follow. And if the measures you chose are the ones you want us to care about, then maybe baseball should follow international soccer.
I wouldn’t call baseball a true international sport. It’s big in North America and Japan/Korea/Taiwan. Other than that it’s highly fringe. It’s a regional sport in every sense of the word.
You’re right dude, the most competitive sports league is the one where the best teams win 80% of their games, where the Chiefs have been in 3 of the last 4 SBs, and where the Patriots were in 4 of 5 immediately before that. But at least their star players don’t make market value money!