Red Sox Reportedly Still 'Very Much In The Mix' For Japanese Superstar

Boston will have to spend big to acquire the touted ace

Scott Neville | Dec 20, 2023

Red Sox Reportedly Still 'Very Much In The Mix' For Japanese Superstar /

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Boston Red Sox

Will the Boston Red Sox be the surprise winners of the biggest offseason bidding war not featuring Shohei Ohtani?

Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has been on the hunt for starting pitching and started at the very top of the market, currently engaged in a battle for the second-biggest Japanese star in free agency.

At least for now, it appears that Boston still is in play for highly-coveted Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

"Team sources indicate the Boston Red Sox are still very much in the mix, but how the bidding war progresses is the big question," The Athletic's Jen McCaffrey wrote Tuesday. "The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported he’d originally thought Yamamoto would make a decision this week, but now he’s not so sure."

The report comes on the heels of a much more discouraging note. Yamamoto visited both the New York Mets and New York Yankees on an East Coast expedition but did not make the trip to Boston or anywhere else according to The Boston Globe's Alex Speier on Tuesday.

This yin-yang of information is exactly how all of the reporting surrounding Yamamoto has been this offseason. Virtually every team has been deemed a favorite or among the favorites at various points in the offseason. Nobody truly seems to know what's going on.

The 25-year-old ace has been the talk of the offseason and continues to hold up the entire market -- which he has every right to do -- but any information surrounding the hard-throwing righty appears far from concrete.

We won't know where he lands until it's reported that he's signed. And even then, as we learned with Ohtani, it's still not a guarantee that it's true.

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Published Dec 20, 2023

SCOTT NEVILLE

Scott Neville covers the Boston Red Sox for Sports Illustrated's new page "Inside The Red Sox." Before starting "Inside The Red Sox", Neville attended Merrimack College, where he earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Communication and Media with a minor in Marketing. Neville spent all four years with Merrimack's radio station WMCK, where he grew as a radio/podcast host and producer. His propensity for being in front of a microphone eventually expanded to film, where he produced multiple short films alongside his then-roommate and current co-worker Stephen Mottram. On a journey that began as a way to receive easy credits via film classes, he received a call from "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" star Charlie Day. Day advised him to make a feature-length film, which he completed his senior year. While writing the film, Neville completed an internship for United Way as part of their NFL Partnership Program. Neville ran the blog for a team of interns and hosted an internet show called "United Way's NFL Partnership Series" where he interviewed NFL alumni. After college Neville wrote for SB Nation's "Over The Monster," a Red Sox sister site of the flagship brand. His work would eventually lead him to a job as a content producer with NESN, where he would cover all sports. After developing as a writer with the top regional network in the world, he was given the opportunity to join the Sports Illustrated Media Group in his current endeavor as the publisher of "Inside The Red Sox." The successful launch and quick rise of "Inside The Red Sox" led to Neville joining the Baseball Essential ownership group, a national baseball site under SIMG. Follow him on Twitter: @ScottNeville46 Email: nevilles@merrimack.edu