Yoshinobu Yamamoto was posted by the Orix Buffaloes on Monday, which means the Nippon starting pitcher has a little less than 45 days remaining to agree on a contract with an MLB team. The soon-to-be MLB starting pitcher is widely viewed as the second-best free agent available in MLB this winter, behind star two-way player Shohei Ohtani.
Yamamoto's potential landing spots have not crystalized with much predictive confidence just yet, as the star pitcher has yet to formally meet with MLB clubs.
Looking at what we know thus far, though, we can surmise a few likely landing spots. Yamamoto may not have carte blanche to control his own destiny, but it's reasonable to expect most MLB teams would be open to signing him to a competitive contract.
Yamamoto is thought to prefer a large market first and foremost, and secondly, wants to play on a team that has another Japanese player, according to recent reports. He has no specific preference for the West Coast as Ohtani did when he was posted six years ago.
Those two clues help us identify a few possibilities, keeping in mind these wish list items alone are not the end-all-be-all for the recently-posted pitcher. Some believe the preference for a Japanese teammate is less a preference and more an element he would be merely content with.
Clue No. 2 -- his desire to play with another Japanese player -- would be interesting because culturally, some Japanese players have preferred to play on teams with no other Japanese players (subscription required), as pointed out by Ken Rosenthal some time ago, due to the existence of hierarchies in Japanese culture.
Yamamoto was previously thought to not care about the cultural hierarchy (subscription required) element, but we now have learned he actually isn't just indifferent on the topic, he may prefer to play with another Japanese player.
So, what teams check off both boxes?
Toronto Blue Jays
Toronto is wrongly sometimes forgotten by Americans as a major market in MLB. At nearly 3 million residents in city limits, it's larger than Chicago. Depending on how you define the "market", it's reasonable to justify the Jays as one of the most marketable locations for a star athlete. As the MLB representation for an entire country, the potential market for an athlete as far as sponsorships and brand deals is massive.
Similarly, Toronto rivals any American city in terms of its diversity. While there's not a massive contingency of Japanese residents in Toronto, it's an easy place for a foreigner to feel at home due to Toronto's home to immigrants of a wide range of backgrounds.
So the big market aspect is checked off. How about a Japanese teammate? Yusei Kikuchi would be one of the starting pitchers Yamamoto would pitch alongside. Given that Yamamoto wants to have a Japanese teammate, maybe one within the rotation with him would be even more attractive.
Kikuchi has been in the majors since 2019, three years with the Mariners and the last two years with the Blue Jays. He just capped off his best season yet with a 110 ERA+ and a career-best 3.77 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
He's played for two teams and has stuck around for over five years, so he could pass plenty of knowledge along to Yamamoto.
Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox are not a top-five market in America, but do sit inside the top 10 as the eight largest television market just behind Atlanta and just ahead of Washington D.C.
Aside from market, there is obviously plenty to like about playing in Boston. A historic franchise with plenty of recent success, manager Alex Cora is widely viewed as one of the best managers in baseball, in line for the next massive contract as a free agent after this year.
In addition, the team just hired Craig Breslow as President of Baseball Operations. Breslow spent the last several years in the Cubs front office, and will surely be looking to make a big splash in his first offseason putting his mark on the franchise's future.
What better way than signing Yamamoto? Only Ohtani would be a more exciting signing.
Masataka Yoshida is under team control through the 2027 season, and could be a long-time teammate for Yamamoto in Boston.
Yoshida, an MLB rookie last season, played for the Orix with Yamamoto just before this and is fresh off of his own transition from the Nippon league to MLB.
New York Mets
In the United States, it doesn't get bigger than New York... If Yamamoto wants the largest market, New York is the place to be.
And if it's between the Yankees and the Mets, might Kodai Senga be the tie-breaking factor? The Yankees don't currently roster a Japanese player -- their most notable recent being Masahiro Tanaka, who has since gone back home to Japan -- though they could fix that if they're able to land Shohei Ohtani.
The Mets are a team where Yamamoto could have instant impact, as well. New York is in a transient state, having traded some of its star pitchers at the trade deadline last year in an admission that its roster wasn't constructed to win, despite having spent a considerable amount of money in the free agency ahead of 2023 to try to win.
A player like Yamamoto could advance the Mets' timeline up a few years, putting them in position to win sooner rather than later.
Chicago Cubs
Similar to the New York market, there are technically two teams to choose from here, though it's hard to see the Chicago White Sox being major players for Yamamoto given that their rebuild has yet to take shape.
The Chicago Cubs, meanwhile, have gestured that they're pushing their chips to the center to try to compete. They shockingly fired David Ross in favor of a new manager, Craig Counsell, whose contract was up with the Milwaukee Brewers. They regularly bubble up in trade rumors around various star players, too.
The Cubs already have solid starting rotation pieces but could still use a backfill for Marcus Stroman, who looks likely to sign elsewhere in free agency after failing to agree on an in-season extension with the Cubs in 2023.
Seiya Suzuki was posted by Hiroshima after the 2021 season and has adjusted well to MLB with a 113 OPS+ in his rookie MLB season and 124 in 2023. He garnered 37 extra-base hits this year for the Cubs, second only behind Ian Happ.
While Suzuki wouldn't be practicing alongside Yamamoto as a non-pitcher, that could be preferable for Yamamoto so he's not engaged in active 'competition' with his fellow Japanese teammate. Instead, Suzuki could help him adjust to American culture and learn from his teammates.
