Why you shouldn't draft Yoshinobu Yamamoto this season

Last season, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was supposed to be the next big thing in baseball. He had just signed with the Dodgers from Japan, and he was projected to make an impact almost immediately. And even though he had a great season, he didn't live up to the enormous expectations that were set for him. This season, he is now being selected as the 58th player off the draft board, which is just nowhere near he should be.

Yamamoto last season started off about as cold as one could imagine. In his first career start, in South Korea in front of all of his fans, he pitched only one inning and gave up five runs in that inning. After that horrendous game, Yamamoto heated up and quickly showed why he made the money he was making. He had a record of 7-2 on the season, while having a 3 ERA and a 1.1 WHIP. Yamamoto also threw for 105 strikeouts in only 90 innings. It looks as if the Dodgers tried to ease him into it, because he only threw about half as many innings as Logan Webb did, who was the NL leader.

Even though Yamamoto was and still is this great pitcher, he's just being heavily overdrafted and way too early. Yamamoto's ADP so far in drafts is 58th overall, and he's being selected as the 13th pitcher off the board. In almost every ranking system, Yamamoto is around 100th overall, and can even be around the 25th best pitcher this year.

Another reason you shouldn't draft him is because of this stacked Dodgers rotation. Ohtani, Snell, Glasnow, Sasaki, Kershaw, even Dustin May will get some time in the rotation. There will be times where Yamamoto is at the end of the rotation, and he won't be pitching as much. Japanese pitchers usually don't pitch as much in their first couple of years anyways, so don't be surprised if he only throws 115 innings this year.

We think that no matter how good he is, he just isn't worth the risk of drafting him so high in the rankings. Let your buddy who doesn't read our articles take him and then watch as Yoshinobu Yamamoto is around the 30th best fantasy baseball pitcher in the league. Opening Day is almost here, so we don't want to make any costly mistakes before the season even begins.