Craig Breslow Opens Up About Red Sox’s ‘Competitive’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto Pursuit

The Boston Red Sox came up short in their attempt to sign Yoshinobu Yamamoto this Major League Baseball offseason.

Yamamoto, who had been arguably the top pitcher available in free agency, joined the Los Angeles Dodgers on a 12-year, $325 million contract, marking another hefty investment for a franchise that also signed Shohei Ohtani to a unique 10-year, $700 million deal.

The Red Sox have yet to make a major splash, instead signing Lucas Giolito in addition to trading Chris Sale to the Atlanta Braves, but chief baseball officer Craig Breslow recently insisted on WEEI’s “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast that Boston made a push for Yamamoto before the Japanese hurler’s decision.

“I think that we were competitive, I think that we put our best foot forward,” Breslow said, as transcribed by Audacy.com. “I think we, by all accounts, made a positive impression in terms of what we could offer. We’ve got a Japanese infrastructure here that I think has eased the transition for a number of players over the last 20 years or so. There are a number of Japanese players who have come over and had success and that made that transition as smoothly and quickly as one can hope.”

The Red Sox tapped into the Japanese market just last offseason when they signed outfielder Masataka Yoshida to a five-year, $90 million contract. Yoshida had some ups and downs in his first season with Boston but certainly flashed enough upside to think he could take a step forward in Year 2.

Overall, as Breslow mentioned, the Red Sox have an impressive track record of acquiring Japanese talent. Signing Yamamoto, an ace in Nippon Professional Baseball, would’ve been a huge boost to Boston’s rotation, but it’s unclear whether the 25-year-old seriously considered joining the Red Sox before landing with the deep-pocketed Dodgers.

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“Ultimately, it obviously didn’t come together,” Breslow said on the podcast, per Audacy.com. “Some of that is potentially within our control, some of it isn’t, right? We can only influence the preferences of others so much. I’m proud of the way that our group came together to demonstrate what we have to offer in Boston. Ultimately, it didn’t work out, but as you kind of just generally think about a player who is in the prime of his career and should contribute over a meaningful period of time, that is the right type of player that I would argue that we should be targeting.”

Yamamoto stood out from his peers in free agency due to his youth and potential to be a legitimate frontline starter. The Red Sox still could pivot and target someone like Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery, but it’s admittedly not an apples-to-apples comparison as Boston navigates the rest of the offseason.