The Phillies’ pursuit of Yoshinobu Yamamoto revealed their challenges in breaking through in Japan

Dave Dombrowski made it a priority to build the Phillies' Far East scouting when he took over in 2021. The team feels it's ready to compete in Japan.

The Phillies were among the large-market teams that pursued Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto. They were not, however, a finalist.Read moreUncredited / AP

by Scott Lauber

Published Dec. 22, 2023, 1:17 p.m. ET

For a half-decade, since Bryce Harper hugged it out with the Phanatic atop the first-base dugout in Clearwater, Fla., the Phillies have been baseball’s most desirable destination for free agents.

Ask anybody, but mostly Zack Wheeler, J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, and Nick Castellanos. Definitely ask Trea Turner, who turned down more money from the Padres — and said “no thanks” to living in San Diego — to sign for 11 years (without an opt-out) in Philadelphia.

But when it comes to players from Japan, the Phillies’ sales pitch gets lost in translation.

Since 1995, 67 players have made the move from Nippon Professional Baseball to the majors. The Phillies are among five teams that haven’t signed a player directly from NPB, a shutout streak that continued late Thursday when coveted pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto chose the Dodgers’ 12-year, $325 million offer — the largest ever for a pitcher in terms of years and overall value.

Yamamoto picked Los Angeles after a monthlong courtship from seven large-market teams, including the Yankees and Mets. The Phillies were among the contenders, even meeting with the 25-year-old righty on Dec. 14 in Los Angeles, a moral victory of sorts that reflects the inroads they made within the last few years to broaden their presence in Japan.

But owner John Middleton wanted Yamamoto every bit as much as he wanted Harper and Turner. And although the Phillies made him a “substantial” 12-year offer (the financial terms are not known), Yamamoto’s decision boiled down to the Dodgers and Yankees, two major league sources confirmed Friday. The Phillies weren’t a finalist.

If there’s a takeaway from the entire endeavor, it’s probably this: In attempting to lure players from Japan, the Phillies face challenges that don’t exist for them stateside. The obstacles might even be insurmountable.

But Middleton and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski already knew that.

“When I first came in and we had our first [organizational] meeting [in 2021], we talked about players from the Far East, and we just didn’t have good information on those players,” Dombrowski said. “We’re sitting in there and I’m thinking, ‘You can’t make any moves based upon the type of information that we have.’ ”

So, rather than pursuing Hiroshima Carp slugger Seiya Suzuki in the 2021-22 offseason to help fill a need for middle-of-the-order power (the Phillies signed Schwarber and Castellanos instead), Dombrowski focused on being better positioned in the future to pursue talent in Japan.

Scouting priorities

The Phillies had tried previously to get more involved in the Pacific Rim. But travel restrictions related to the pandemic paused those plans, leaving them with only one Japan-based scout in 2021.

Dombrowski made sweeping changes to the front office in 2021, his first season at the helm of the Phillies’ baseball operations. As part of the overhaul, he charged assistant general manager Jorge Velandia with heading up international scouting and gave him a specific directive.

“We need to build a better infrastructure in how we approach the Far East,” Dombrowski said.

Identifying and pursuing talent is all about relationships, and that’s especially true in Japan, where high school coaches and NPB managers tend to hold immense sway over players’ decisions. Step 1, then, for the Phillies was to increase their scouting efforts.

Velandia dispatched assistant director of international scouting Derrick Chung to Japan to conduct initial interviews with talent evaluators. Chung, 35, played with Rhys Hoskins in college and got drafted by the Blue Jays. He played briefly in the minors, then joined the Phillies in 2017 as an interpreter for South Korean outfielder Hyun Soo Kim.

Chung joined the scouting staff a year later and gained a reputation as ambitious and aggressive. After visiting Japan, he recommended that the Phillies hire veteran scout Koji Takahashi, who developed contacts and relationships after years of working for the Minnesota Twins.

During one trip to Japan, Chung went to see a few players at a tryout for an independent league team. As he recalled this week, “The best prospect on the field ended up being a scout.”

Indeed, Chung met Tora Otsuka, a former outfielder at the University of San Diego who was trying to keep alive his playing career. But Otsuka, 26 years old and the son of former major league pitcher Akinori Otsuka, impressed Chung with his knowledge of the game. It helped, too, that he’s fluent in both Japanese and English.

“Tora wasn’t one of the guys I was going to interview,” Chung said. “He just sort of appeared out of nowhere. There was a lot of ingredients that he brought to the table. There’s a lot of ceiling, a lot of upside to grow into. We thought it was a no-brainer.”

Velandia, who has increased his trips to Japan to at least two per year, said Otsuka has been “a tremendous asset.” Dombrowski describes him as a “sharp guy.” With Otsuka living outside Tokyo, nearly 400 miles from Takahashi’s base in Osaka, the Phillies believe they have more of the country covered than ever.

But here’s what they don’t have: A history of signing Japanese players.

Competing, finally

Since 1995, the Mets have signed eight NPB players, most recently right-hander Kodai Senga, Yamamoto’s former teammate with the Orix Buffaloes. The Yankees and Red Sox have landed four players apiece, including marquee names Hideki Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka in New York and Daisuke Matsuzaka and Masataka Yoshida in Boston.

Yamamoto became the seventh NPB player to sign with the Dodgers, following in the footsteps of fellow pitchers Hideo Nomo, Hiroki Kuroda, and Kenta Maeda. And his choice of team came less than two weeks after the Dodgers forked over $700 million for Shohei Ohtani, the best player on the planet.

By contrast, the Phillies have had two Japanese players in franchise history, and neither So Taguchi nor Tadahito Iguchi came to town directly from Japan. Taguchi signed as a free agent after six seasons with the Cardinals; Iguchi got traded from the White Sox in 2007.

“At the time, we didn’t have the infrastructure to do that,” Velandia said, citing the need for an interpreter and other support staff to assist in the acclimation of a Japanese player. “Now we feel like Philadelphia, we’ve scouted the whole city for restaurants, supermarkets, doctors, so many different things that we can offer a player who comes over here.

“We can compete with any team in the big leagues when it comes to cities.”

Chung, born in South Korea and raised in southern California, made similar mention of a Japanese community in the Philadelphia area. But as one team source suggested this week, it’s natural for a Japanese player to be drawn to Los Angeles and New York in the same way that Americans are attracted to Paris and London. Yamamoto, for one, was said to prefer the bright lights.

And the Phillies haven’t built their brand in Japan to level the playing field with, say, the Dodgers and Yankees.

It’s beginning to happen, according to Chung, who said the Phillies’ success in the last two postseasons and star-laden roster are raising their profile internationally. In their meeting with Yamamoto, Harper joined via FaceTime to deliver a recruiting pitch.

But the Yankees did the same with Matsui, one of the best sluggers in Japanese baseball history. And while the Dodgers brought Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman into their meeting with Yamamoto, the presence of Ohtani was likely the real clincher.

In hindsight, the Phillies didn’t have a chance. They must have known as much when Yamamoto flew to the East Coast last weekend to meet a second time with the Yankees and dine with Mets owner Steve Cohen, but didn’t stop in Philadelphia before jetting back to Los Angeles.

Other Japanese stars will come to the majors within the next few years. Maybe the Phillies’ involvement in the Yamamoto sweepstakes will give them a better chance with, say, 22-year-old right-hander Roki Sasaki. Or perhaps they will sign a lower-profile player from NPB to help set a precedent when the next star comes along.

“I don’t think we necessarily have to sign somebody to establish that more,” Dombrowski said. “Having the base, having the interaction to get the player at the right time will be important.”

The Phillies are more confident in their scouting process. Perhaps it would help further if they utilized Taguchi and Iguchi, both of whom have coached or managed in NPB. Taguchi, in fact, works for Yamamoto’s former team.

But after so many years of lagging behind, it’s more difficult for the Phillies to break through in Japan. It isn’t an impenetrable market, though. As one industry source said, “all it takes is one player” to set a precedent.

“We have put ourselves in a position and in a place where, if there’s a player of interest that we like as a group, then I think we’re able to go after him,” Chung said. “We’re in a better position than we were, that’s for sure.”