NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Yankees have their meeting set with Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
The club will get a face-to-face visit with the coveted Japanese right-hander and his representatives on Monday, The Post’s Joel Sherman confirmed Wednesday, because it tries to land the 25-year-old stud.
The Yankees have scouted Yamamoto extensively, including GM Brian Cashman flying to Japan to look at him in September and seeing him throw a no-hitter.
A lot of Cashman’s top lieutenants have also been overseas to scout Yamamoto, who has thrice been named the highest pitcher in Nippon Skilled Baseball.
Cashman and manager Aaron Boone gave Yamamoto rave reviews Tuesday, and while they’re removed from the one suitors for the highest pitcher on the free-agent market — the Mets are also making a powerful push — they appear to imagine they’ve an actual shot to land him.
Due to rabid interest, the full price to land Yamamoto (including the posting fee) could possibly be upwards of $300 million, per The Post’s Jon Heyman.
Cashman declined to say whether the Yankees would use former Japanese stars Hideki Matsui or Masahiro Tanaka of their recruitment efforts, but didn’t rule it out.
“Ultimately we’ll play every card needed that we predict is gonna help us and see where it takes us,” Cashman said.
Gerrit Cole has an opt-out in his contract after next season, but when he triggers it, the Yankees can just add an additional yr at the top of the deal to maintain him in pinstripes through 2029.
“We might anticipate that those things are going to occur,” Scott Boras, Cole’s agent, said on Wednesday.
In the event that they do, it could bring the full value of Cole’s contract to 10 years and $360 million.
The Yankees’ non-roster pitching depth took a success in Wednesday’s Rule 5 draft, losing three right-handers — including the highest two picks — out of the ten total players chosen.
The Athletics drafted Mitch Spence with the primary pick before the Royals nabbed Matt Sauer with the second pick. The Rangers later chosen Carson Coleman with the twenty third pick.
Spence, 25, spent this yr at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, posting a 4.47 ERA across a minor league high 163 innings.
Sauer, 24, was the Yankees’ second-round pick in 2017 but his development has been slowed by injuries, pitching to a 3.42 ERA across 68 ¹/₃ innings at Double-A Somerset this yr. And Coleman, a 25-year-old reliever, missed all of 2023 after undergoing elbow surgery.
All three pitchers, whom the Yankees left unprotected by not adding them to their 40-man roster last month, can have to spend all of 2024 on their latest team’s major league roster, or else they will probably be offered back to the Yankees for $50,000.
The Yankees had stockpiled solid upper-level pitching depth, but a few of it’s on the move this week.
Besides the three pitchers lost within the Rule 5 draft, they traded Richard Fitts to the Red Sox as a part of a package for Alex Verdugo and Michael King, Drew Thorpe, Randy Vasquez and Jhony Brito to the Padres for Juan Soto in a blockbuster Wednesday.
Boone said Wednesday that DJ LeMahieu is his third baseman.
