The New York Yankees lost out on Japanese free-agent right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but not for lack of effort.
A comparison of the teams’ offers lends credence to the notion that Yamamoto simply might have preferred the Dodgers to any other club.
The Yankees offered Yamamoto a higher average annual value than the Dodgers, an earlier opt-out and more money in the first five years, according to sources briefed on the respective proposals.
Yamamoto, however, agreed to a 12-year, $325 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers that included a $50 million signing bonus, opt-outs after the sixth and ninth years and backloaded salaries. The deal is not yet official. The New York Mets proposed the same 12 years and $325 million. Other details of their bid are not known.
The Yankees offered Yamamoto 10 years, $300 million — an AAV of $30 million, as opposed to the Dodgers’ $27.08 million. The opt-out in their deal was after the fifth year, and the salaries each year were the same, with no money backloaded.
So, including a posting fee of $46.875 million to Yamamoto’s Japanese club, the Orix Buffaloes, the Yankees were ready to commit to a total payout of nearly $200 million over five years, knowing Yamamoto then might opt out.
What the Yankees did not offer Yamamoto was a record total value for a pitcher, surpassing the $324 million they guaranteed their own Gerrit Cole after the 2019 season. They also did not offer a $50 million signing bonus, though the parties could have shifted money into a bonus if the negotiations advanced.
Per Robert Raiola, a CPA who is the director of sports and entertainment at the accounting firm PFK O’Connor Davies, Yamamoto will not pay California tax on the signing bonus if he is a nonresident of the state.
The Dodgers will pay the bonus entirely in 2024, and the tax savings for Yamamoto could amount to $7.2 million.
The message seems clear. Like Shohei Ohtani, who reportedly had the Giants and Blue Jays willing to match the 10-year, massively deferred $700 million contract he received from the Dodgers, Yamamoto appeared to have a specific team he wanted to join. And that team was the Dodgers.
(Top photo of Yamamoto: Yuichi Yamazaki / AFP via Getty Images)
