Slugging ace pitcher Shohei Otani and his representatives have wasted little time rejecting clubs, informing several teams on Sunday that he won't negotiate with them.

With only three weeks to reach a contract and facing interest from virtually all of Major League Baseball's 30 teams, Otani's agent, Nez Balelo, asked teams to prepare a presentation about how they could meet Otani's needs and nurture his aspirations as both a hitter and a pitcher.

According to mlb.com, at least seven teams -- the Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels, San Diego Padres, Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers -- are still in the running to land the 23-year-old Japanese star. Face-to-face discussions are set to begin in Los Angeles on Monday.

The New York Yankees, the story reported, will not get a chance to meet Otani.

"I know that our presentation was excellent," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, said. "The feedback that we got from that was excellent. But the sense I got was that we can't change the fact that we're in a big market or that we're in the East."

"When players are in the marketplace like that, you do everything you possibly can...but when it's not a fit, it's not a fit."

In response to their city being rejected, the New York tabloid Daily News posted a photo of Otani on the front page of its Monday edition with the headline: "What a chicken! Japan star snubs Yanks, fears big city."

In addition to the Yankees and the Red Sox, mlb.com listed the New York Mets, Pittsburgh Pirates, Oakland A's, Toronto Blue Jays, Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals, Arizona Diamondbacks, Washington Nationals, Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox are reportedly out of consideration.

The Giants boast three coaches who played in Nippon Professional Baseball, bench coach Hensley Meulens, batting coach Alonzo Powell and assistant batting coach Rick Schu, and a Japanese bullpen catcher, Taira Uematsu.

Otani has some familiarity with the Padres, having worked out at their spring training facility the past two years with his Japanese club, the Nippon Ham Fighters.

Three former Japanese major league pitchers work for the Padres, Hideo Nomo, Takashi Saito and Akinori Otsuka, while Otani's former strength coach with the Nippon Ham Fighters, Seiichiro Nakagaki, is San Diego's director of applied sports science.

If that's not enough, third-year Padres manager Andy Green spent the 2007 season in Japan with the Fighters, and though it was an undistinguished, injury-hit season, he has told Kyodo News that NPB made a big impression on him.

The Mariners, who have MLB's deepest connection with Japan, have re-signed pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma to a minor league contract and might be interested in acquiring future Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki.

So far, all the teams mentioned as definite candidates hold their spring training camps in Arizona, where Nippon Ham has started spring training since 2016.