This afternoon will be the final deadline for Major League Baseball teams to sign talent that has entered the posting system from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball or South Korea’s Korea Baseball Organization. As the deadline draws ever nearer, most of the biggest names have been taken off the board. Many of them were signed by the Colorado Rockies’ division rivals in the National League West.
Right-handed pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Orix Buffaloes—the biggest name of the posting period—was signed to a 12-year, $325 million contract by the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers also paid a $51 million fee to his NPB team in order to reunite Yamamoto with his former Samurai Japan teammate Shohei Ohtani.