Baseball: Otani narrows field, turns down Yankees
Slugging ace pitcher Shohei Otani and his representatives have wasted little time rejecting clubs, informing several teams on Sunday that he won't negotiate with them.
According to mlb.com, at least seven teams -- the Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels, San Diego Padres, Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers -- are still in the running to land the 23-year-old Japanese star. Face-to-face discussions are set to begin in Los Angeles on Monday.
The New York Yankees, the story reported, will not get a chance to meet Otani.
In addition to the Yankees and the Red Sox, mlb.com listed the New York Mets, Pittsburgh Pirates, Oakland A's, Toronto Blue Jays, Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals, Arizona Diamondbacks, Washington Nationals, Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox are reportedly out of consideration.
The Giants boast three coaches who played in Nippon Professional Baseball, bench coach Hensley Meulens, batting coach Alonzo Powell and assistant batting coach Rick Schu, and a Japanese bullpen catcher, Taira Uematsu.
Otani has some familiarity with the Padres, having worked out at their spring training facility the past two years with his Japanese club, the Nippon Ham Fighters.
Three former Japanese major league pitchers work for the Padres, Hideo Nomo, Takashi Saito and Akinori Otsuka, while Otani's former strength coach with the Nippon Ham Fighters, Seiichiro Nakagaki, is San Diego's director of applied sports science.
If that's not enough, third-year Padres manager Andy Green spent the 2007 season in Japan with the Fighters, and though it was an undistinguished, injury-hit season, he has told Kyodo News that NPB made a big impression on him.
The Mariners, who have MLB's deepest connection with Japan, have re-signed pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma to a minor league contract and might be interested in acquiring future Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki.
So far, all the teams mentioned as definite candidates hold their spring training camps in Arizona, where Nippon Ham has started spring training since 2016.