Pitching Free Agency Frenzy Begins, Are Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto Deals Nearing?

The dominoes have started falling. It took a few days, but the teams have finally started signing free agents. With players like Kenta Maida, Sonny Gray, and Aaron Nola making swift decisions regarding their team of choice, it seems things are falling into place rather quickly. Does this mean that MLB is nearer than expected in terms of Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Blake Snell deals?

The way things have gone till now, it sure seems like teams are looking to finalize deals as quickly as possible. With a few teams showing more ambitions than previously thought, their effects on this offseason could be much bigger than initially thought.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Snell deals nearer than ever

The offseason started slowly with teams taking their sweet time discussing with agents. While everyone wondered where would set the dice rolling, few expected it to be the Phillies ace Aaron Nola. With a $172 million contract for seven years, winter’s biggest free agent headline to date, Nola decided to go back to the City of Brotherly Love.

That deal sent the ball rolling with multiple deals getting announced in the last few days. The St. Louis Cardinals in particular have been active in filling their pitching needs and have announced three new signings: Sonny Gray, Kyle Gibson, and Lance Lynn. With Kenta Maida going to the Detroit Tigers. In total, 8 deals have been finalized, out of which 6 are of pitchers.

With this many deals happening even before the winter meetings, one can expect there to be a heavy movement in the market in the coming days, particularly for Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Blake Snell. Yamamoto’s timeline has raised expectations for a mid-December signing. What is interesting is that the teams that are linked with these two haven’t announced a major new signing yet.

Read more: Not Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but the Cardinals to Sign Free Agent Ace Sonny Gray: Reports

What this can mean is that they’re busy still meeting and negotiating with their targets, including these two aces. If the meetings are going on with such fervor, it’s only a matter of time before the picture starts to become clear to us all. As it is, the teams they’re linked with need pitchers desperately.

Teams desperately looking for aces

LA Dodgers’ lack of pitchers was what let them down in the playoffs last season. They were forced to use players who weren’t ready for major leagues because of high injuries. Now they want to solve that problem immediately and are linked with both of these aces. The San Francisco Giants are huge favorites for signing Snell. They would love to do it after failing to sign quite a few big players over the year. While Yamamoto has enormous interests coming from the Mets who are putting their all to get him. All in all, it seems fun is about to begin in the offseason.

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