Senga Kodai, who signed a contract with the New York Mets ahead of this season, was also the highest-level pitcher in Japanese professional baseball. Senga signed a five-year, $75 million contract with the New York Mets, and is preparing for his first major league season with an opt-out condition.
The battle for Senga’s recruitment was also heated, but major league officials are focusing their attention, saying that a pitcher better than Senga could enter the free agent (FA) market next year. Yoshinobu Yamamoto (25, Orix), who is considered the best pitcher in Japanese professional baseball, is the main character. As a Japanese pitcher familiar to us, he will also represent Japan in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), which will be held in March.
Joel Sherman of the ‘New York Post’ reported on the 10th (Korean time) that ‘there is a very strong belief among major league officials that the Nippon Professional Baseball Orix will allow Yamamoto to post after 2023’, and detailed Yamamoto’s details. dealt with the evaluation. In summary, he is a much better player than Senga, has several advantages, is worth more than $150 million, and is praised as an ace-level stuff in the major leagues. 토토사이트
“After 2021, Yamamoto has a walk rate of just 5.5%, while his strikeout rate has reached 27.7% and he has a ridiculous 1.54 ERA,” Sherman said. The record is inhuman, and he has an ERA of 1.84, which is more impressive considering his age.’
Sherman borrowed the evaluations of scouts who interviewed him, and Yamamoto received top-notch evaluations, including a fastball in the mid to late 90s, a splitter with a plus-plus pitch, a world-class curveball, and defensive power from athletic ability. said there is Renowned columnist Keith Law evaluated Yamamoto as ‘having the ability to become a club ace in the major leagues’.
Major League Trade Rumors (MLTR) reported Sherman’s article and said, ‘However, everything depends on his health and performance in 2023. Yamamoto has been a very healthy and dominant pitcher so far, but one thing that can change the prospects of any pitcher is an injury,’ he said. ‘Big league scouts for Yamamoto will point to his small physique as a concern. “Very few starting pitchers of this size can physically stand up to the workload of a big league and play at an elite level.”
According to Yamamoto’s profile, he is 178 cm tall, making him one of the smallest players in Japan. Senga is 187 cm tall, Yu Darvish (San Diego) is 196 cm, Masahiro Tanaka (Rakuten) is 188 cm, Kenta Maeda (Minnesota) is 185 cm, and Yusei Kikuchi (Toronto), who is even smaller, is 183 cm. Yamamoto’s technical ability can always be augmented, but it’s not easy to artificially grow his physique. It is also of interest to see how Major League scouts evaluate this part.