On Thursday, Jon Heyman of The New York Post reported that Japanese superstar Kazuma Okamoto was receiving “big” interest from teams across Major League Baseball, including the Pirates, Blue Jays and Red Sox.
On November 20, the Yomiuri Giants of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in Japan officially posted the 29-year-old infielder/outfielder, who is widely regarded as one of the most sought-after hitters on the planet.
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For those unfamiliar with what “posting” means, here’s what Google Gemini says:
“Posting a player in baseball is a process that allows a player under contract with a foreign league, such as Japan’s NPB or Korea’s KBO, to become available for Major League Baseball (MLB) teams to sign. The player’s current team requests to have the player “posted,” and if the request is granted, MLB teams have a specific window to negotiate a contract. If a deal is signed, the MLB team pays the original team a “posting fee” based on the value of the contract.”
Prior to Heyman’s report from Thursday, there was already reported interest from the Angels, Yankees, Cubs and Mets in the NPB slugger. At that time, Boston was mentioned to be in the mix as well. And weeks later, Boston appears to be the only team from that first group still vying for his services.
And while all teams involved have plenty of cash to get a deal done, Boston might just have the one ace in the hole that their competition is missing:
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Masataka Yoshida.
Here’s what Tyler Milliken of the Section 10 podcast cooked up on X on back on November 8:
You know what that looks like to me? A couple dudes having a great time together at Disney.
And look, you’re not just hitting Disney as a “Disney adult” with anyone. Those trips are reserved for your closest friends – people you feel so comfortable with that you’re OK walking around with them in public wearing mouse ears as a grown adult. I know Milliken might’ve been posting this in jest, but I actually believe it has some legs to it.
If you’re going to move halfway around the world to play professional baseball in a country you’ve never lived in before in your life, wouldn’t you want to do that with a familiar face around? And wouldn’t having that familiar face around help you feel more comfortable as you attempt to acclimate to an entirely new league with an even greater level of competition around you?
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I know these guys are all loaded, and can fly on private jets all over the world to hang out with friends and family. Their form of “moving across the world away from everyone they know” is a whole lot different than me moving from New England to St. Louis in my mid-20s for work. When I was homesick, all I could do was call friends and family and cry alone in the shower. When Okamoto is inevitably homesick, he can hop on a jet and spend a weekend at home in Nojo.
But here’s the caveat – trips like that will basically be impossible during baseball season. For 162 games, it’s basically a non-stop freight train through the end of the regular season, save for a week in July for the All-Star break. And if Okamoto is as good as advertised, he should be participating in the festivities in Philadelphia along with the other stars around baseball.
Mar 15, 2025; Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan; Yomiuri Giants first baseman Kazuma Okamoto (25) fields a ground ball against the Los Angeles Dodgers during the fifth inning at Tokyo Dome. (Darren Yamashita/Imagn Images)
Having Yoshida around as his buddy from home during the grind of the baseball season is a price tag no other team in baseball can match.
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If Yoshida can help lure over a 29-year-old with positional flexibility (most recently a third baseman) with a 2025 slash line of .322/.411/.581, he’ll be worth every penny of the $36 million he’s due over the next two seasons. That .992 OPS will play beautifully for a lineup in desperate need of more consistent production in 2026.
Fingers crossed that friendship trumps money for Okamoto!
Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He’s a senior digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.