Yamamoto rejects both Yanks, Mets for $325M with Ohtani’s Dodgers
The Yankees and Mets went all-in on Yoshinobu Yamamoto — and struck out. Instead of becoming the next Japanese star in The Bronx or Queens, Yamamoto will join Shohei Ohtani with the Dodgers, The Post’s Jon Heyman confirmed. The signing was first reported by the YES Network.
The winning bid for the 25-yearold right-hander was for 12 years and $325 million — $1 million more than Gerrit Cole’s nine-year deal with the Yankees.
And it means Los Angeles is on the hook for over $1 billion for both Yamamoto and Ohtani.
The Post’s Heyman reported the Yankees bid $300 million and The Post’s Mike Puma reported the Mets matched the Dodgers’ offer. It’s a blow to both local teams. The Yankees were heavily invested in bringing Yamamoto to New York to bolster a rotation that’s led by Cole, but with plenty of question marks behind him.
They’ll now turn their focus to the remaining free-agent market, with Blake Snell and former Yankee Jordan Montgomery available, as well as Japanese left-hander Shota Imanaga, but they will have plenty of competition from teams that also missed out on Yamamoto, as well as other teams that weren’t involved in the Yamamoto sweepstakes.
The trade market includes Dylan Cease of the White Sox and Milwaukee’s Corbin Burnes.
Manager Aaron Boone was part of the Yankees’ contingent that met twice with the Yamamoto in hopes of getting the biggest free agent still on the market to come to The Bronx.
“It’s been fun to get to meet him a couple times and be around him and have conversations,’’ Boone said earlier Thursday. “Now we’ll see how it goes. I know all teams are now putting their best foot forward and negotiating. That’s above my pay grade. We’ll see where he lands.”
Hours later, they found out, which meant their meetings with Yamamoto in Los Angeles with his agent, Joel Wolfe, as well as in Manhattan, according to Boone, weren’t enough.
They included a video message from Hideki Matsui as part of their sales pitch, hoping Yamamoto would follow Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka to The Bronx.
Boone said Yamamoto was “aware of a lot” of the Yankees’ history of success with Japanese players.
The meetings also included general manager Brian Cashman and pitching coach Matt Blake, and Boone was impressed by what he learned about Yamamoto.
“I think he wants to be great,” said Boone, who teamed with the 44th Precinct and the Food Bank For New York City at a food and toy distribution pop-up in The Bronx on Thursday. “I think that’s what’s important to him. I think he’s been looking forward to this.”
Yamamoto has won the equivalent of the Cy Young award in Japan each of the previous three seasons, which helped make him the second-most sought-after free agent of the offseason, after Ohtani.
Now, the duo will team up on the West Coast and the Yankees are forced to pivot to a backup plan to fortify their rotation.
They sacrificed pitching depth in trades they made this offseason to land outfielders Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo, as well as others in recent years.
“The Soto deal took a while because we were trying different iterations to keep certain people out of it,’’ Boone said of the trade that sent Michael King, Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez, as well as righthanded pitching prospect Drew Thorpe, to San Diego. “In the end, it’s Juan Soto. It’s gonna hurt.”
But, the manager added, “We do feel good about the next crop [of young pitchers]. Whether it’s [Will] Warren, Luis Gil coming back [from Tommy John surgery] or [Chase] Hampton, there are a lot of guys pushing up to the next level.”