Yoshinobu Yamamoto watch: Yankees' Aaron Boone praises Japanese star as team awaits ace's decision

Aaron Boone, like everyone else in the Yankees organization, is in full wait-and-see mode when it comes to Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

“I don’t know, man,” Boone said with a smile Thursday afternoon. “It’s been fun to get to meet him a couple of times and be around him and have conversations and interact. Now, we’ll see how it goes.”

The Yankees, in need of bolstering both their rotation and organizational pitching depth after the recent trades for outfielders Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo cost them a slew of arms, certainly hope it goes their way.

But Yamamoto’s free agency, though not played out in the secrecy of the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes that saw the two-way star end up with the Dodgers, has mostly been played close to the vest, with contradictory reports coming almost daily.

What is known is there is plenty of competition for the standout Japanese pitcher, who was posted a month ago. He is a desired piece by several other big-market, big-money teams — including the Mets, Dodgers and Phillies — and the waiting game has much of the sport in limbo as Yamamoto weighs contract offers that are expected to be in the range of $300 million when all is said and done.

He has until Jan. 4 to make a decision. Although there has been much speculation in the industry that the 25-year-old righthander will make a decision by the end of this week, no one knows that for certain.

The recruitment portion, at least, of the process is thought to be concluded and the Yankees, as Brian Cashman put it at the winter meetings, believed they put their “best foot forward” in that regard.

That involved two meetings with Yamamoto and his representation. One took place earlier this month in Los Angeles, a get-together that included managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner, team president Randy Levine, Cashman, Boone and pitching coach Matt Blake.

The club met again with Yamamoto last weekend in Manhattan.

“Special dude,” Boone said of what he’s taken away from his interactions with the pitcher, who went 16-6 with a 1.21 ERA, 0.884 WHIP and 169 strikeouts in 164 innings last season with the Orix Buffaloes of the Nippon Professional Baseball League. “Some presence to him, comfortable in his skin, confident, but a humility to him . . . I think he wants to be great, I think that’s what’s important to him. There’s some similarities there between him and Gerrit [Cole] in how dedicated and disciplined and all-in they are on pitching and baseball and their body and how to be successful.”

During one of the meetings, Boone presented Yamamoto with a No. 18 Yankees jersey, a number of significance in Japan as 18 is typically the number worn by the ace of a given team’s staff in that country.

“It’s his if he wants to keep it,” Boone said, smiling again.

Boone spoke outside the NYPD’s 44th Precinct Thursday where he, along with some precinct officers, participated in a Food Bank for New York City event, passing out groceries and toys to neighborhood families.

Not surprisingly, much of Boone’s session with the media revolved around the Yankees’ pursuit of a pitcher many talent evaluators see as having front-of-the-rotation potential.

“When there’s an opportunity to add more toward the front end of it [a rotation] potentially, you have to try and play on that if you can,” Cashman said in early December at the winter meetings.

The Yankees have had their share of players from Japan who have come over and had immediate success with them, a group that includes Hideki Matsui, Hiroki Kuroda and Masahiro Tanaka (Ichiro Suzuki, toward the end of his career, was dealt to the Yankees from the Mariners in 2012 and played the 2013 and ’14 seasons with them).

Boone said Matsui, who still maintains close ties to the franchise, was involved in the recruiting process but did not specify.

“Hopefully [those] are things that matter and add up,” Boone said. “But we’ll see.”

And continue to wait.

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.