Japanese Baseball Cards: Yoshinobu Yamamoto Of The Los Angeles Dodgers

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Yoshinobu Yamamoto Of The Los Angeles Dodgers

Last week former Orix Buffaloes pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed a 12 year, $325 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Since the Buffaloes had posted Yamamoto (rather than him being an international free agent), Orix will receive a posting fee in the neighborhood of $50 million.

Yamamoto played high school ball at Miyakonojo High School in Miyazaki Prefecture on Kyushu. I don't think his team made it to Koshien while he was there but he was still well regarded enough for him and three other high school players from the region - Yugo Umeno, Masumi Hamachi and Ryu Ota* - to be dubbed "The Four Kings Of Kyushu". As the 2016 draft approached there were rumors that he had a foot injury and was going to play in the corporate leagues which scared teams away from drafting him. He was eventually taken by the Buffloes in the fourth round.

*Umeno and Hamachi would be drafted in 2016 by the Swallows and Tigers respectively while Ota would play for JR East in the corporate leagues for three years before being drafted by the Giants in 2019

He made a handful of starts with the top team in 2017 before spending most of 2018 working out of the bullpen. The free agent defections of Chihiro Kaneko and Yuki Nishi before the 2019 season opened up a spot in the rotation for him and he made the most of it. His win-loss record was a modest 8-6 (last place Orix went 61-75-7 that season) but he had Pacific League leading ERA of 1.95 with 127 strikeouts and only 36 walks in 143 innings over 20 games. Orix finished last again in 2020 but Yamamoto went 8-4 with a 2.20 ERA, 149 strikeouts (most in the PL) and only 37 walks in 126 2/3 innings in 18 games.

In 2021, Yamamoto and the Buffaloes embarked on a remarkable three year stint. His win-loss record was 18-5 in 2021, 15-5 in 2022 and 16-6 in 2023 and he posted ERAs of 1.39, 1.68 and 1.21 in those three years. He struck out 206 batters in 193 2/3 innings in 2021, 205 in 193 innings in 2022 and 169 in 164 innings this past season. He's won the "Pitching Triple Crown" (leading the league in wins, ERA and striekouts) in the Pacific League the past three years along with three consecutive Best 9 awards, three consecutive Sawamura Awards and three consecutive Pacific League MVPs. He led Orix to the Pacific League pennant and Nippon Series all three of these seasons and they won the championship in 2022.

He's a five time All Star - 2018-19, 2021-23 - and he'd be a six time All Star if there'd been All Star games in 2020. He's thrown two no-hitters - one in 2022 and the other in 2023, making him the first pitcher in Japan to throw no-hitters in consecutive seasons since Tadashi Kameda did it in 1940-41 as well as the first pitcher in over 50 years to throw multiple no-hitters. He's played on Samurai Japan for the last three major tournaments - the 2019 Premier 12, the 2020(1) Tokyo Olympics and the 2023 World Baseball Classic - and helped them win all three championships.

His first baseball card was #051 in the 2017 BBM Rookie Edition set. He also appeared that year in BBM's 1st Version set (#157), Buffaloes team set (#Bs22) and Fusion set (#81) as well as Epoch's Buffaloes Holospectra set (#16). His first Calbee card didn't come until Series Three in 2018 (#168). He didn't have a card in BBM's 1st Version set in 2018 but has been in every 1st & 2nd Version set and Fusion set ever since. He's also a card in every Calbee set (although sometimes only a subset card) since 2018, every Epoch NPB set since 2018 and every Topps NPB set since 2021. He's appeared in both the 2019 and 2020 Calbee Samurai Japan sets and several of Topps' WBC sets this year. Here's a bunch of his cards: