Good news for the Yankees!
Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball have reached an agreement on a new posting system that would limit the maximum bid to $20 million and allow multiple teams to negotiate with the player. This change will give more teams a chance to bid and give the posted player more options as a virtual free agent. The Japanese team would, however, miss out on millions of dollars they could have gotten under the old system.
This has led to the idea that the Golden Eagles will not post Masahiro Tanaka because it might not be financially worth it for them to lose their best pitcher. After discussing the matter internally, the Eagles have decided that if Tanaka wants to be posted, the team will honor is wishes. This would be good news for the Yankees, because even though increased competition will make Tanaka more expensive, they still need pitching.
As details begin to come out about the new system, it turns out that the Japanese team will now be able to name their price, as long as it meets or falls under the $20 million mark. Any team that meets the team's fee would then be able to negotiate with the player. Tanaka, or someone as high profiled as he, would obviously be set at $20 million, but less certain players could fall to a lower fee. The Japanese team would still set a reasonable amount of money for the player they post because otherwise no one will bid or agree to a contract, leaving them with nothing.
