We've seen a lot of players come over from Japan to become stars -- in both real life and Fantasy -- on our side of the Pacific. Rarely have we seen them come as decorated as Yoshinobu Yamamoto is.
Not only is he the reigning winner of the Sawamura Award, Japan's equivalent of the Cy Young, but he's won it three times in a row. And each time, his performance was good enough to earn him MVP honors as well. His numbers during that time? A 1.42 ERA, 0.88 WHIP and 9.5 K/9.
What's more impressive is he's accomplished it all before really entering his prime, having just turned 25 in August. It's a big reason why the Dodgers were willing to commit 12 years to him, according to the terms reported Thursday, an absurdly long deal for a pitcher. The $325 million is also the highest total amount for a pitcher, beating Gerrit Cole's deal with the Yankees by $1 million.
Between that and the $700 million they've already committed to Shohei Ohtani this offseason (not to mention the trade for Tyler Glasnow), the Dodgers clearly smell blood in the water. And they're clearly putting Yamamoto in a position to win a ton of games, if nothing else. For that reason, you couldn't ask for a better landing spot for his Fantasy value. Shoot, you couldn't ask for a better landing spot for any player's Fantasy value.
So what can we expect from Yamamoto, other than wins? Pitching analyst extraordinaire Eno Sarris wrote a detailed scouting report for The Athletic earlier in December. It reads like one of those articles you see during slow news times that imagines what the perfect pitcher would look like if you combined the best characteristics of several pitchers -- only in this case, it actually is for a singular existing pitcher.
Sarris compared Yamamoto's splitter to Kevin Gausman's, which is basically the gold standard for that pitch. He evoked the names Max Fried and Seth Lugo for Yamamoto's curveball. For command, he cited George Kirby and Zach Eflin, who ranked first and second for BB/9 this past year. And that's not even mentioning Yamamoto's fastball, which peaks at 99 mph and has the rising effect that's so coveted in the modern game for its swing-and-miss potential. This isn't just wild speculation from Sarris either. Thanks to the World Baseball Classic this past year, he has the data to back it up.
It sounds completely unfair, but I suppose that's why Yamamoto's numbers look like they do. And now we'll get to see whether it translates to the majors -- which isn't a given, by the way. There are complicating factors that could make more of a difference than we're imagining right now -- the actual ball, for one thing. The balls in Japan are tackier, which allows for better grip and more spin. Might it undermine the effectiveness of Yamamoto's pitches and introduce new injury risk? Sure, but again, Sarris' assessment was based on data from the World Baseball Classic, where the tackier ball wasn't in play.
Every player is his own person of course, but I look at the success from Kodai Senga's rookie season as all the more reason to buy into Yamamoto. Yamamoto's accomplishments are greater and his flaws not as glaring. He plays a better team, throws way more strikes, and is more established -- not just in terms of hardware but also in that he's averaged 186 innings over the past three years. If you're worried about his 5-foot-10 frame, that's reason enough to stop right there. If you're worried about anything at all, that just makes him like every other pitcher not named Spencer Strider or Gerrit Cole.
In fact, you wanted to rank Yamamoto ahead of every pitcher other than Strider and Cole now that we know he's going to the Dodgers, I wouldn't say it's crazy. Personally, I still feel more secure with pitchers like Gausman, Zack Wheeler, Corbin Burnes, Luis Castillo and Zac Gallen, and I also love the upside of Glasnow and Tarik Skubal. But I'll slot Yamamoto 10th among starting pitchers once he's added to the CBS Sports database. It may seem aggressive, but I did just favorably compare him to Senga, who I rank 13th at the position.
If there's a downside to this signing for Fantasy, it's that the Dodgers have a surplus of interesting young arms who will now have to wait their turn. Emmet Sheehan is the likely front-runner for the fifth spot with Ryan Pepiot being moved in the Glasnow deal, but there's also Gavin Stone, Kyle Hurt and Nick Frasso, to name a few. Of course, with Walker Buehler coming back from a second Tommy John surgery and Glasnow not exactly a model of durability either, the young guys should still get their opportunities. They might just come later in the year than we were expecting.
