Tanaka in limbo as US-Japan posting system at impasse
Orlando (AFP) - Japanese star pitcher Masahiro Tanaka's desire to make the jump to North American Major League Baseball is in limbo due to an impasse between officials of the US and Japanese leagues.
Tanaka went 24-0 in the regular season this year and sparked the Rakuten Golden Eagles to their first Japan Series title and the 25-year-old right-hander was expected to command a high fee to the club for negotiation rights and huge salary to cross the Pacific Ocean.
But talks between Nippon Professional Baseball and Major League Baseball over the posting fee system have stalled and that leaves Tanaka's fate in jeopardy.
Without the posting system -- used to bring such Japanese stars as Yu Darvish, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Ichiro Suzuki from Japan to US clubs -- Tanaka must play two more seasons in his homeland to be considered a free agent in Japan.
"We made a proposal to the Japanese," Major League Baseball chief executive officer Rob Manfred said in comments on the league's website.
"When we made that proposal, we told them it was important that they give us a timely response. Unfortunately, they have not been able to do that."
Club owners met this past week in Florida and might alter the plan after having not heard from Japanese officials.
"There was discussion that will require us to go back to the Japanese and have some further conversation about the proposal we made," Manfred said.
Under the posting system, North American clubs would make blind offers for negotiation rights to a player. The highest bidder would win the rights to an exclusive signing period.
If the player signed a deal to leave Japan, his former club would receive the posting fee as a purchase price for the player. If there was no deal, the player would stay with his Japanese club and the posting fee would be negated.
A Japan Times report said changes to the posting proposal included making the fee the average of the top two bids, decreasing costs to North American clubs, and that teams failing to sign a Japanese player would be subject to a fine by Major League Baseball, according to the MLB website.
The New York Times reported that a proposal from Pittsburgh Pirates president Frank Coonelly would have posting fees count against a team's luxury tax figure, a move aimed to reign in such big spenders as the New York Yankees, who were looking at a high bid for Tanaka must would have to think twice if staying under the $189 million luxury tax limit is a concern.
Manfred, the Times said, noted that the players union had rejected any notion of tying posting fees to the luxury tax.
But smaller market clubs without the extra resources of the Yankees' local television contract hope to hold down the spending excesses of their big-market rivals.
Tanaka, 99-35 for his career, is the hottest Japanese prospect with US clubs since Darvish was signed by the Texas Rangers before the 2012 season.
Tanaka had a 30-game win streak until losing game six of the Japan Series to the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, then came back for game seven after 160 pitches the prior day and hurled a stellar ninth inning to give Rakuten the crown.
Without the posting system, Tanaka would have a longer wait for the free agency route used by such Japanese stars as Hideki Matsui and Koji Uehara.
Texas paid the Nippon Ham Fighters a record $51.7 million posting fee and signed the right-hander to a six-year deal worth $60 million.
