Baseball's spending class has pulled out all the stops this season in an attempt to woo star Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Why shouldn't they? Yamamoto is 70-29 with an astounding 1.82 ERA and 922 strikeouts in seven Nippon Professional Baseball seasons. Behind Dodgers designated hitter and pitcher (and fellow 2023 World Baseball Classic champion) Shohei Ohtani, no free agent is more widely coveted.
On Thursday, Yankees manager Aaron Boone detailed how New York went about recruiting the 25-year-old. He revealed that he personally presented Yamamoto with a No. 18 Yankees jersey–his number in both NPB and the WBC.
