The San Francisco Giants, which had been aiming to beef up its capacity in all directions ahead of the 2024 season, also showed greed for pitchers. As it is belatedly known, San Francisco’s foremost target was Lee Jung-hoo (San Francisco Giants) as a fielder and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (Los Angeles Dodgers) as a pitcher.
San Francisco showed a serious interest in recruiting Yamamoto, possibly to the point where it was evaluated that Yamamoto had more priority. Yamamoto was the biggest player in the 2023-2024 Major League free agent market, where the starting market was relatively weak, and a starting pitcher was essential for the team to survive in the long-term race. He was young and had advantages of Asian marketing. 동행복권파워볼
In order to recruit Yamamoto, he talked about details with the agency, and former and current players such as Buster Posey and Logan Webb appealed directly or indirectly in the recruitment campaign. Yamamoto also confessed honestly that he thought he might go to San Francisco after signing a contract with the Dodgers. As such, the club’s actions were positive.
However, Yamamoto signed a 12-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the highest amount (in terms of total) of 325 million U.S. dollars in the history of Major League Baseball. Upon confirming Yamamoto’s amount, San Francisco couldn’t keep up with him, and had to just watch him eventually head to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the world’s biggest rival.
The San Francisco Giants plan to continue strengthening the starting rotation. There are Logan Webb, an ace, Kyle Harrison, a rising left-hander, and Logan Webb, who returned after shaking off an elbow injury to Blake Snell, whom they recruited ahead of this season, but he is still thirsty. Due to Snell’s sluggish performance, Ray has surgery aftermath. It does not give the impression that it is a solid rotation.
Then, San Francisco finds the right person again overseas. The player who drew attention was definitely Sasaki Rocky (23), a monster born in Japan. Sasaki has already created a big issue in Japan with his perfect game, and contributed to Japan’s victory by throwing fastballs at the World Baseball Classic last year. Already, overseas scouts are constantly coming to the mound every time he takes the mound.
And one of the teams that watches Sasaki play every day is the San Francisco Giants. According to local media in Japan, a total of eight Major League teams visited Sasaki’s first game of this season. The New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, and San Francisco Giants scout were also at the stadium. San Francisco is always mentioned as a Major League team that visits the stadium when Sasaki takes the mound.
Sasaki wants to advance to the Major League early. Currently, players under the age of 25 are required to sign international amateur contracts. In this case, they are not eligible for FA but amateur players, so each club must sign a contract with the maximum bonus pool it has. Bonus games are actually the same. There are not that big differences. After all, each club has to persuade its players based on its own vision. Shohei Ohtani (30, LA Dodgers) went through such procedures when signing a contract with the Los Angeles Angels.
Of course, Chiba Lotte is against Sasaki’s early advancement. Although he is gentle with the saying, “You can contribute to the team a little bit more before you leave,” he doesn’t want to give up the huge amount of posting money. Right now, Yamamoto was 26 years old, and his former Orix team was able to earn a huge amount of posting money. However, Sasaki is 23 years old, and Chiba Lotte has no choice but to oppose it. However, Sasaki still wants to advance quickly.
San Francisco could be quite an attractive team in Sasaki’s eyes. It is a prestigious club that represents the league and is the western coast favored by Asian players. While the Los Angeles Dodgers has seniors like Shohei Ohtani and Yamamoto, it can dominate the spotlight if it joins the club. There is also coach Bob Melvin, who is close to Asian players. If the Korean-Japanese signboards with Lee Jung-hoo and Sasaki join the club, it will be a big topic of conversation in itself.