Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 618 - 157: Posting System Upheaval
"What? A new bidding regulation? What kind of trick are those old guys in professional baseball trying to pull again?"
Hearing the news coming through the phone, Nomura Katsuhiko frowned deeply, unable to hold back a furious outburst.
The 2016 Nippon Professional Baseball season is nearing its end, and the climax matches are about to begin. As a player, Lin Guanglai is naturally in an active state of preparation; 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞
As Lin Guanglai's agent, Nomura Katsuhiko has also started contacting his connections in the United States, preparing for the bidding process set to begin next month.
Understanding the list of interested teams, probing the conditions they can offer, and striving to secure the maximum benefit for his client... These are all tasks Nomura Katsuhiko needs to be busy with; but just as he was gearing up for a major effort, a new rumor disrupted all his plans:
To balance the interests of all parties and compensate Nippon Professional Baseball teams for the losses in the current bidding agreement, the Nippon Professional Baseball League and Major League Baseball have, after tough negotiations, prepared to implement a brand new bidding system!
Since 1998, marked by Nomo Hideo developing his career in the U.S. through forced retirement and Iribu Hideki mandating the Yankees as his future team, the bidding system was established through consultation between Nippon Professional Baseball and Major League Baseball to standardize player transfers and prevent disputes.
The earliest bidding procedure adopted a bidding system. After a Nippon Professional Baseball player obtained the consent of their team, they would be put up for bid to Major League Baseball. MLB teams would have four days to offer their bid amount (i.e., transfer fee), and the highest bidder would gain negotiating rights with the player.
This bid amount had no upper limit and was completely separate from the player's contract. After the player signed, the entire bid amount was paid to the player's original team in Nippon Professional Baseball.
This original bidding system led to many astronomical transfers, including the Boston Red Sox's $51.11 million bid for Matsuzaka Daisuke in 2006 and the Texas Rangers' $51.7 million bid for Yu Darvish in 2011.
Such prices became increasingly untenable even for wealthier teams and drew strong discontent from small-market MLB teams, who felt that the limitless bidding approach ultimately led to market-rich teams monopolizing top Japanese players.
Thus, in 2011, Japan and the U.S. negotiated again, reaching a new agreement to limit MLB teams' spending, forming the current bidding policy still in effect today.
The new policy set a $20 million cap on the maximum bid amount any MLB team could offer. If multiple teams offered the maximum bid of $20 million, the player would have the freedom to choose which team to sign with from among them.
This existing scheme helped reduce the financial burden on MLB teams and gave players the right to freely choose their next team, seemingly an improvement over the previous system; however, in practice, Japanese teams and players found it far from ideal.
One significant issue is the severe damage to Japanese teams' interests. For example, in Tanaka Masahiro's 2014 bid, while he personally signed a seven-year, $155 million contract with the New York Yankees, the Rakuten team faced a huge loss in the bidding fee.
Previously, a player of Tanaka's level could certainly secure a bid exceeding $50 million; now, suddenly reduced to $20 million, the $30 million shortfall made the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles reluctant to release him.
If not for Tanaka Masahiro's many years of selfless service to the Rakuten team and his series of promises, the ace joining the Yankees might have encountered complications.
To balance the interests of all parties and specifically compensate Nippon Professional Baseball teams for losses in the previous agreement, Japan, the U.S., and the players' union have been negotiating since the end of last year and are close to establishing a brand new bidding system.
The new bidding agreement will abolish the existing $20 million cap, once again allowing MLB teams to bid freely, while introducing a "tiered" revenue-sharing system. The compensation amount received by the original team will be directly linked to the total value of the contract signed by the player and the MLB team.
If the contract value is below $25 million, the Nippon Professional Baseball original team will receive 20% of the total contract value as compensation;
If the contract value is between $25 million and $50 million, the Nippon Professional Baseball original team will receive 20% of $25 million, i.e., $5 million as base income, plus 17.5% of the amount exceeding $25 million;
For players with a contract value exceeding $50 million, their original team will receive the entire amount deserved below $50 million, plus 15% of the amount exceeding $50 million.
Furthermore, MLB teams no longer need to bid to gain negotiation rights with players but only need to pay a fixed, small "posting fee" to the Nippon Professional Baseball League;
Players initiating the bidding are allowed to contact all interested MLB teams, with a 45-day negotiation window;
The amount of compensation received by the player's original team will be directly linked to the player's strength — the stronger the player, the larger the contract they receive, and thus the more compensation their original team gains.
If Lin Guanglai had reached the age of 25 this year and acquired overseas FA rights, Nomura Katsuhiko would certainly be delighted to see this new tiered policy emerge and might even use his influence to expedite its implementation.
