Grading Yoshinobu Yamamoto's contract with Los Angeles Dodgers - ESPN

Until today, Gerrit Cole's contract — a nine-year, $324 million deal — was the richest ever given to a pitcher in terms of total value. Has that deal been worth it for the New York Yankees? So far, absolutely. He's been outstanding in each of his four seasons for New York, and last season, he won his first-ever Cy Young Award. It's mind-boggling to call that much money an efficient expenditure for any team, even one in a big market, but so far for the Yankees, it has been.

Whether it's a free agent deal that changes the course of a team's future or a blockbuster trade that has the league buzzing, our experts are ready to weigh in.

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The contract that the Dodgers agreed to with Japanese phenom Yoshinobu Yamamoto — 12 years, $325 million — now eclipses Cole's pact on the all-time pitching contract leaderboard by a measly million dollars — and those figures don't include the $50.6 million posting fee the Dodgers will pay for handing out this deal. In the end, the Dodgers just made the biggest splurge a team has ever made on a pitcher (at least one who isn't also a 40-homer hitter, like Yamamoto's new teammate, Shohei Ohtani). They did this for a 5-foot-10, 176-pound, 25-year-old righty who has never thrown an inning in the major leagues.

Stretched over 12 years, Yamamoto's $27.1 million average annual value is less than Cole's $36 million, and ranks behind other star hurlers like Justin Verlander, Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer. Still, you can look at Cole as the standard. All Yamamoto has to do is produce like Cole, and the Dodgers will come out well ahead on this deal — and as you'll see by the grade on this transaction below, there are lots of reasons to believe that L.A. just landed a hurler with