Whispers, rumors, offers submitted, it all happened in the team’s chase for Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The have been wanting to dip their toes into the Japanese baseball player market and tried to this offseason by making an offer to the right-hander, their first (public) attempt at bringing in a big free agent from the Pacific Rim. Ultimately, Yamamoto chose to join Shohei Ohtani in Los Angeles and while it’s disappointing that the Phillies were unable to acquire his services, it’s actually not a bad thing that all of this happened.
Was our interest piqued? Of course. As with any free agent, whenever there are connections being made to the Phillies, people use cautious optimism when thinking about the potential match.