Will this NPB star follow Yoshida to Boston?

This story was excerpted from Ian Browne's Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

BOSTON -- The Hot Stove, which has been simmering to this point with a move here and a move there, is going to boil soon because that is typically what happens when the Winter Meetings are but a week away.

For the Red Sox, under new leadership in chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, there is one clear story to watch in the next couple of weeks: Can they successfully sign the most intriguing starting pitcher on the free-agent market?

That man is Japanese righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who was posted by the Orix Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball last week. In fact, Yamamoto is ranked No. 2 among the top 25 free agents this offseason by MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand.

It was a year ago the Sox were successful in landing another free agent posted by the Buffaloes: left fielder Masataka Yoshida.

That Yamamoto would have a friend in Yoshida, who could help in the assimilation process, might be of some help to Breslow and Boston’s front office in wooing the talented pitcher.

In truth, though, the presence of Yoshida will be just one of a myriad factors Yamamoto sifts through before deciding where he wants to play.

According to SNY’s Andy Martino, Yamamoto and his representation will listen to pitches from all interested teams via phone calls and Zoom meetings in the coming days.

Once the field is narrowed down, Yamamoto will fly to the United States and meet with the teams he deems as finalists. The current plan is for those in-person meetings to take place in the days following the Winter Meetings, which are Dec. 4-6 in Nashville, Tenn.

"This is by far the player with the most interested teams that I have ever seen at the beginning of free agency," Yamamoto’s agent Joel Wolfe said in a call with Japanese reporters last week. “It's what we call a perfect storm, where you have one of the finest young pitchers in the world who also is just 25 years old. It's generational. Something like this only happens once every 10 or 15 years."

The need the Red Sox have for a front-line starting pitcher or two is glaring. Breslow’s desire to improve the team’s pitching via internal and external means is obvious.

Only two marquee free-agent pitchers have agreed to deals this offseason: Aaron Nola, who went back to the Phillies on a seven-year, $172 million contract, and Sonny Gray, who is heading to St. Louis for three years and $75 million, per sources.

There likely isn’t a better external option than Yamamoto, with all due respect to lefties like NL Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell and postseason hero Jordan Montgomery and a righty with a proven track record like Lucas Giolito.

The expectation within the industry is that Yamamoto’s ultimate price will be upward of $200 million.

Factor in his age (25) and the fact he’s won the Sawamura Award (Japan’s equivalent of the Cy Young) the past three years and it’s easy to see why many organizations are willing to take a leap of faith in someone who has never thrown a pitch in MLB.

His repertoire consists of a mid-90s fastball to go along with a splitter, cutter, curve and slider.

If Yamamoto asks other Japanese players what it is like to play in Boston, he will get favorable reviews. Though Daisuke Matsuzaka didn’t live up to the enormous hype that came with his arrival, he was the No. 3 starter on a World Series-winning squad in his first season (2007) and finished fourth in the AL Cy Young Award voting in his second season. What speaks bigger volumes to a Japanese player curious about playing in Boston is that Matsuzaka’s family maintained residence in Massachusetts for years after his retirement from MLB.

Other Japanese pitchers who thrived with Fenway Park as a home pitching address and won World Series rings while they were there? Koji Uehara, Junichi Tazawa and Hideki Okajima.

Yamamoto will have a lot to think about leading into the biggest decision of his professional life. If he chooses Boston, this is going to go down as a big offseason for the Red Sox.