The Dodgers Will NEVER Stop

Welcome, you over 140,000 amazing supporters of the channel and the 67% who haven't subscribed yet, let's take a trip down memory lane where we see the San Diego Padres signing Xander Bogart to fully complete the recruitment of the biggest baseball superteam known to man. Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, and now Xander? It was over for the rest of the league before a game was even played. The Padres were out here assembling a superteam and asking to be paid their respect by everyone before the season even started. And this is how the Dodgers reacted. Xander Bogart has gone on to be looked at as the worst contract in baseball by many. Juan Soto is a Yankee, Tatis and Machado are still good, and so is Xander, and should continue to be, even though the contract is crazy, but the Dodgers have since said hold my bank account and then promptly had the biggest offseason of all time. They went out and got Shohei Otani in the most expensive contract in sports history, while also finding a way to make it one of the most team-friendly deals in sports history to save some money on the payroll for other players. And once the details of Shohei's contract were revealed, it was pretty obvious that the Dodgers, who need pitching, were going to then go after the biggest names on the market, Yoshinobu Yamamoto being the top free agent pitcher, but also Tyler Glasnow on the trade market. And like clockwork, it was almost immediately reported that they were working on a trade for Glasnow, and a few days after that, it happened, as the Dodgers struck a deal with the Rays for Tyler Glasnow. But not only that, the trade was only going to go down if Glasnow agreed to a contract extension with the Dodgers, and he did, signing a 5-year extension worth over $136 million, turning him from a 1-year rental into a long-term plan. So that's more money going into this team, and after seeing the meeting the Dodgers had with Yamamoto, a meeting that took place at Dodger Stadium with Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, his potential catcher Will Smith, and the best player in the world, Shohei Otani in attendance, I mean, how does he not choose to sign there? He gets to be with another Japanese player to help guide him and get him comfortable in his first year in the United States. That Japanese player is literally the greatest athlete ever, there are other stars like Mookie and Freeman there, the Dodgers are a winning organization and are always a lock to make I will admit, there was a point where as much as I felt Yamamoto should be a lock to be a Dodger, I started to feel like the Yankees were going to get him. The Dodgers paid Otani, they traded and then paid for Glasnow, maybe they don't feel the need to spend so much more on Yamamoto, oh no, he's a Dodger. You can make a case that Yoshinobu Yamamoto is the most valued pitcher in the entire world right now. Well, actually he is, he's the most paid. He hasn't thrown a major league pitch in his life yet, no, but the Japanese league is no joke. It's not just a minor league level, it's an incredibly talented league full of guys who can take on the best of the best in the majors. I mean just look at how things go down in the world baseball classic between Japan and Team USA. In the 2017 WBC, USA did beat Japan in the semifinal but the score was 2-1. They just barely had to hold on and the Japanese team didn't even have any stars. And then in the latest WBC in 2023, now led by Shohei Otani, Japan beat USA in the final game. Yamamoto was a part of the latest team Japan ended up WBC, finishing with the second most strikeouts in the entire tournament, pitching 7 in a third innings with 12 strikeouts, gave up just a couple runs on 4 hits, and this is of course all worldwide talent. As far as his numbers in Japan against the Japanese league hitters, they are straight up ridiculous. Like, it's not fair. He has a career 1.72 ERA, he locates well and doesn't walk many people with a career To give context on how good that is, let's compare that to Garrett Cole's 4.57 ERA. Yamamoto's splitter is arguably the filthiest, most deadly pitch in the world and I'd argue the best part of all this is the fact that he's just 25 years old. That's another reason why the demand was so high and really blew the attention the other starting pitchers on the market got out of the water. He genuinely and quite literally dictated the market. Other starting pitchers were making decisions to purposefully wait until after Yamamoto signs to sign their own contract because it would really impact them and help get the best deal they can get and get better offers from the teams that missed out on Yamamoto. So that's how valuable Yamamoto already is before stepping foot on any major league field to play a game. He's impacting everything. Now there's always a potential injury concern. He's thrown more innings than most or really any major league rookie ever has before their rookie year even begins, so time will tell on that stuff, but right now all we can do is just sit back and watch the Dodgers take every historic player off the market basically. And the contract details are insane. Maybe not as insane as Shohei's contract, I don't think any contract will ever match how unique that one is. There's no deferrals in Yamamoto's deal. But his contract with the Dodgers is for $325 million over 12 years along with a $50 million signing bonus. It's gonna be about a $28 million annual salary and if 12 years sounds crazy to you, that's because it is. It's the longest contract given to a pitcher ever, blowing right by the previous record of 9 years set by Garrett Cole's contract. So there has never been a double-digit length of a contract for a pitcher before until now. Crazy to think about. Open up a box of a dozen donuts and each one represents the years Yamamoto will be in LA. That's a lot of donuts. And years. And it's insane. But then again, he's only 25, not even in his prime yet, which is scary. So if any pitcher gets this, it's him. You had all of this Otani talk, rumors about what teams wanted him, what teams were having these top secret meetings with him, fake reports about him being on an airplane, only for him to end up signing with the team we all expected him to sign with. The Dodgers. And then we have all this Yamamoto talk, rumors about what teams wanted him, what teams were meeting with him, reports of Steve Cohen flying to Japan to meet with the guy, Bryce Harper call with Yamamoto during his meeting with the Phillies to try and recruit him, only for him to end up signing with the team we all expected him to sign with. The Dodgers. The Dodgers are inevitable.