His name is Kazuma Okamoto,

Third Baseman, who spent the past decade playing at a very high level in Japan.

Yes, I'm interested, infinitely more important. Yes, the pirates appear to be

legitimately interested. Good morning to you. Good. Monday morning, I'm Dan Kovachvich of D.K. Pittsburgh

Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates, presented by our good friends over at the North Shore Tavern.

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Okamoto's name has been floated in connection with the Pirates.

A handful of times in recent weeks,

nothing excessive and certainly not anything as definitive sounding

as some of the legitimate stuff that emerged over the past three or four days.

Now, I say legitimate for a reason because anybody who's pressing play on a podcast called Daily

Shot of Pirates on the 29th of December will know that this is the time of year where

things get really wacky in terms of the reliability

of what's out there. So I'll restate I'm basing this little slice of commentary on legitimate

reports that Okamoto's potential field of suitors has dwindled down to the pirates, the Padres, and the Angels.

Now, if you've got some knowledge of the history of these types of transactions, you'll know that the West Coast teams have a huge advantage in signing players like this,

who are free agents from the Far East, who'd like to be closer as a relative term.

You're still not close to the Far East anywhere that you are on the west coast, but you're

not as far as when you come out here, way out east. One way or another, we're going to know in the

very near future because the end of Okamoto's so-called posting window is January 4th, and that's this coming Sunday.

...