Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 350: Jason Coskrey on Masahiro Tanaka and the New Posting System

Episode Date: December 17, 2013

Ben and Sam talk to Jason Coskrey of The Japan Times about Masahiro Tanaka and the recent changes to the NPB-MLB player posting system.

Well, don't tell me I'm crazy, until you hear my plan. I'm gonna buy a ticket and move to Japan. I'm gonna move to Japan. I'm gonna move to Japan. Good morning and welcome to episode 350 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. I am Ben Lindberg, joined as always by Sam Miller, and today we have a guest. He is Jason Koskry from the Japan Times, and he's joining us to talk about the changes to the posting system and he is in a cafe in Tokyo.

Are you being served anything at the moment? I've got a nice soy latte and a cookie. Exotic. By the way, how did you end up as a baseball writer for the Japan Times? Because you are originally from Detroit, right? Yeah, I was actually in school, and then I did the internship at the Birmingham News in Alabama. And while I was doing my internship,

also I worked for the Birmingham Barons PR department for a while. For that, like, one summer in 2005. And then got a job at a paper, got a job at the Marietta Daily Journal. Saw a job at For the Japan Times, applied, knowing that there was no way I was going to get it. And they called me, so I kind of just got on the plane and did you did you have any I mean had you been to Japan before did you speak Japanese did you have any preparation for that job or um I I'd never been to Japan before I'd never known anyone who had been to Japan before um I took like a class in college but That was about it. I took a class in college, and I know this.

I got this part of the language down, and then I got off the plane, and nothing made sense at all. It was an experience. Wow. I thought I was adventurous when I went to a college that I had not visited before. This is more adventurous. that I had not visited before. This is more adventurous.

Okay, so as we enjoy the atmosphere of the Tokyo Cafe, there was an agreement that was ratified on Monday between Major League Baseball and the Pond Professional Baseball that has pretty significantly revamped the posting system that we've all become familiar with. Can you sort of, you know, for the benefit of people who don't know how the system worked before, don't know what the changes are to the system, can you sort of summarize the changes? And, you know, how it worked before and how it's worked from now on. Before it worked in a way where a player wanted to be posted, he'd have to ask his team for permission to get posted.

Once he's posted, then all the Major League Baseball teams would submit blind bids, and the highest bid earned, they won the exclusive negotiating rights to the player. So you can only negotiate with that one team. If they signed him to a contract, then the Japanese team would get that bid, the posting fee. And then if they didn't sign him to a contract, the player was forced to come back to Japan for another year, which you saw with Hisashi Wakuma,

where he got posted and couldn't come to a deal with the Oakland A's, and he had to come back to Rakuten for another year. And so what that was, it basically is very restrictive to the players. They had no control over who won the bid. They got no control over whether or not they would even get posted. And once somebody won the bid, they could only negotiate with that one team. And it was basically, you know, take whatever our best offer is going to be or just go back to Japan. And so that was very restrictive. And, of course, it did lead to big posting fees.

Like, Matsuzaka got over $50 million. Darvish got over $50 million. Kei Gawa, of course, got way more than he should have gotten. And so, of course, MLB teams were kind of balking at the prices for what they were paying for these guys when you look at the return on the investment the Yankees spent on Gawa especially. And so a lot of hand-wringing.

Long story short, they decided to change the system, and this year they've changed the system to where now Japanese teams will, you know, they can say, we want you to bid this much to get this player, and any team can bid. And then there's a cap on it now, $20 million, and that's the max. And if more than one team submits the max bid, then the player can negotiate with the teams who submitted the max bid. But it opens it up for the players.

It opens it up for, I guess, smaller market MLB teams because now those contracts are going to be running up against luxury taxes, whereas before the posting fees weren't a part of the luxury tax. luxury taxes, whereas before the posting fees weren't a part of the luxury tax. So that was the Matsuzakas that were kind of the New York, Boston, those kind of teams were going to get those players. So now it's just a little bit more open now. What possible financial incentive do the Japanese teams have for agreeing to this cap?

Well, that's what everyone here is wondering because it's so counterintuitive. And of course, with Masahiro Tanaka, the Eagles are less than happy about it. And I think they were the one team who were dissenting to agreeing to this new rule. There's no financial incentive for MLB teams or for MPB teams at all. And really, when you think about it, when you look at the posting system, those exorbitant bids were really only for a certain class of player. And if you look back, the only guys who got over $15 million as far as posting fees were Matsuzaka Darvish, Kei Gawa got 26,

and Iwakuma's bid that Ace admitted was 19. So there's only been a handful of guys who've gotten that big, big money. But that handful of guys have all come since 2006. But, yeah, for the Japanese teams, like the Eagles, for there to be a $20 max, they were expecting at least $40 to $50 million as a posting fee. Now they're not going to get that. No one can really understand why japanese teams would do that but they operate in really strange ways that are often counterintuitive to anything and you know part of it was not every team is

and this is something that um i have to give credit to patrick newman of mpp tracker he he said this first but not every team particularly believes in the posting system and not every team likes the posting system. So for those teams, it doesn't really matter what the agreement is because, for instance, the Yomiuri Giants don't recognize it. They don't post their players. It doesn't make any difference to them what the agreement is. So I think for particular teams, for them to all as a group say,

we want this, it's different than if it if it was their player uh so what was the the impetus for this happening at at this particular time was there one and was it after the the darvish fee that mlb teams said we don't want to do this anymore or is it is it tanaka specifically that was sort of the the cause of this happening now I think it's a little bit of both because the teams have been when the Darvish thing came on there were teams who were saying look we're paying way too much for these guys you know it's just way too much money to be dishing out and then the agreement had actually lapsed by then after Darvish so there was technically there was no agreement last year there was just there was just nobody who wanted to go

um and who was available to be posted and this year of course with masahiro tanaka coming up they were trying to scrap something together very quickly and you know when they came up they came up with an agreement where at the beginning there was going to be the top the the winning team was going to pay the average of the top two bids, which still would have worked out well for Japanese teams. Not as well as it would have worked out before, but still fairly good. But then once the Japanese players finally agreed to that, and when they went back to MLB at the winter meetings, there were small market teams saying, look, this isn't fair. The posting fee should count towards the luxury tax, which of course, the bigger market teams kind of balked at. And so that's how we ended up with disagreement, which is kind of a little bit more, I guess,

more fair to small market teams, but it's not particularly fair to Japanese teams. I guess fair is relative, seeing as how they admit it. They agreed to it, but it doesn't really do them any good. So did MLB have some leverage here where NPB owners were afraid that if they didn't agree to this that there could be worse consequences somehow in the long term? Like, you know, MLB would be more aggressive about signing Japanese players because they would talk to their MVP teams or maybe the players themselves would be satisfied somehow because they would feel that their own teams

were standing in the way of their coming to the US? Is there some element of that that could have... I don't really think there was any leverage because if MLB just said, look, we'll just wait until these guys reach international free agency when they can just leave for free and the worst thing that would have happened

would be the Japanese teams would just keep their best players and their most marketable players for an extra couple of years. So, I mean, it would have been bad. The consequences would be more dire for the players themselves than it would have been bad. The consequences would be more dire for the players themselves than it would have been for MLB or for MPB teams, just in that the players wouldn't be able to go.

They wouldn't be able to move at will. They wouldn't be able to try to challenge the majors. But for Japanese teams, like, for instance, Tanaka, you know, MLB said, look, there's no posting agreement. We're not going to sign this guy. We'll just wait until he's a free agent. You know, for Rakuten, yeah, they don't get this money, but they still have this guy on the roster making them money

and also helping to put a good product on the field, which leads to more money. Why don't major league teams sign these guys before they get into the system? How come they're not signing them at 16 like they sign Dominican kids and Australian kids kids i think for a while there were there was an agreement where the mlb teams wouldn't do that and especially and a lot of it is also though like japanese players the generation before there was there's probably a lot of hesitance to

kind of buff this system like that because no hideo nomo took a lot of flack for going to the states when he went and then of course Junichi Tozawa took a lot of grief when he decided to just skip MPB because that's what he did he he went to the Red Sox before he got into the system and he told all the MPB teams look I'm going I don't want to play here I'm going to go to the major leagues don't draft me and that just caused just all sorts of grief for him. And, you know, there was a lot of brushback for him. So I think that the earlier era of guys probably just didn't want to buck the system. But I think now there's a new generation of kids here and a lot of a generation of kids that the major leagues is the more attainable goal for them. And I think that kind of started

with Nomo and it kind of started with Nomo, and it kind of started with Matsuzaka even more, because back before, the majors was kind of, I don't know, it's kind of a bastion maybe. Nobody even thought about Japanese players going over there, thriving over there. And then when Nomo went, it was just, it was the land of the giants. A guy with Nomo's talent can do it. A guy with Daisuke's talent can do it.

And now you're just seeing, you know, I don't want to say bad MVP players, but guys who are in that tier below going over to the majors. I guess that's what I was... So I think that it's just, I think it was just kind of entrenched in the system that maybe guys didn't want to buff the system.

I guess that's sort of what I was wondering if that was kind of a gentleman's agreement, whether the NPB owners would be afraid that if they didn't go along with this, that MLB teams would get more aggressive about trying to sign guys before they got into the system. Now that Tozawa did that and sort of, I don't know whether he removed some of the stigma from it but at least set a precedent for that. Maybe they felt like this was in their long-term best interest, just in terms of making sure that they have these guys at least

for a while before they jump into the U.S. That's possible, but there was also Shohei Otani who was a rookie for the Fighters this year. MLB teams are pretty, I don't want to say aggressive after him, but they came here, they had meetings with him.

He was coming out of high school, and he was going to go, and he told teams like Tozawa, like, look, don't draft me. I'm going to go to the majors. And even when he got drafted, he said, I'm going to go to the majors. I'm glad you drafted me, but I'm not staying here. But they convinced him to stay. So I think there's going to start being kids who are going to come out of high school, come out of college, and go straight to the majors. I don't think it's going to be like a faucet opening,

but there are going to be more guys doing it, I believe, in the future. Was Nomo posted? No. Was Nomo posted? No, Nomo, he took advantage of a rule where he just retired from Japanese baseball. And then he went and signed with the Dodgers. So he... Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so he wasn't posted. He just took advantage of a rule that said you could retire.

There was a loophole in the agreement. He retired and freed himself of all the rights from here. And so no one owned his rights, so he went to the States. And Alfonso Soriano tried to do the same thing in, I think it was 98, 97. And when he was with the Hiroshima cart, he wanted to move in. He had the same agent, Don Nomura, and he tried to use that same loophole. And by then, Japan had closed the loophole, but they hadn't informed the major league officials of that, which caused just a big argument.

And so eventually Soriano was allowed to go to the States, and the two leagues got together and said, look, as far as player movement, we need to set up a system. And that's kind of how the first posting system came about. Because after the Storiano deal, they needed a way to facilitate player movement. And a way that would be feasible to both sides. So why is Tanaka... Presumably, Tanaka would have been more valuable to a major league team last year,

and he would have been even more valuable the year before. I mean, the earlier they get him, the better, right? So why did he wait, why was it, why did it take until now for him to get posted? Why don't these guys get posted, you know, when they're 20 or 21, when they might have even more value? Is there sort of a cultural thing that keeps them from doing it until one year or two years before free agency yeah and it's that and it's also the team so they they want to get their their money's worth out of a guy too and they just it just seems to be one of those things that isn't done you you keep a guy until he works he he kind of

he does his duty to the team. He works and does everything. He puts in his time, he puts in his years, and then he has to be posted. Because there really aren't guys who even particularly ask to be posted until about their sixth, seventh year. And then Japanese teams would probably, even at that earlier stage, they'd probably not post a guy sometimes. You mentioned in one of your recent columns for the Times

that maybe that's something that this new system could change. In other words, because teams don't have as much incentive to post the player because they're not getting as much money back, or at least they're capped at $20 million. So if it's a top, top player, they might just decide to hold on to him as long as possible and that maybe it would be more lucrative for them just to keep him until he's a free agent

than it would be to give him up and get the $20 million out of it. Yeah, I think that could be one of the flaws in the system from the player's standpoint. Because I don't think that a Japanese team, I don't think it's going to affect that many players for one. I think, let's take Norichika Aoki for instance. I don't think something like this is going to affect Aoki. And I think whatever, if he was going to get posted, he's going to get posted. But for a guy like, if it was Darvish a couple of years ago,

I think maybe Nipon Hammond says, well, we could have gotten more than $20 million out of him. He's worth way more than that. We should just keep him and keep him on the field and keep him filling the seats and making money for us. Do you know what Tanaka gets paid right now? This year he's getting $400 million, or this year he's getting 400 million yen or this year he got 400 million yen which he got was just like he had a he got a 25 percent raise from last year until this year

so so that would be uh 3.8 million dollars basically yep okay um, so about Tanaka, I mean, first of all, what do you think he is? If you could come up with a comp for him, either a previous Japanese pitcher or just any pitcher, or where do you think he slots in in a major league rotation based on what you've seen? League rotation based on what you've seen? Based on what I've seen, I think he was, as far as a comparison, he's very much like Corotta. But I think maybe on a Major League team, I think in my opinion, he's definitely a number two. I think there are a lot of teams he could be a number one on.

I think for some teams he'd be a number two. I think for there are a lot of teams he could be a number one on. I think for some teams he'd be a number two. So I think his I think his values his ceiling is a number is a number one. I think he's probably a number two guy right now. And it seems like a lot of the top pitchers who are available here haven't there hasn't been a lot of movement with them because possibly teams are waiting to see what happens with Tanaka. Guys like Matt Garza and Irvin Santana and Ubaldo Jimenez. And it sounds like we might have the final word on Tanaka as soon as today, if you're listening to this on Tuesday. Can you kind of take us through the mini soap opera saga that has gone on here about trying to persuade him to stay or what has been said or what has been promised or not?

Well, he's been pretty quiet. I mean, he met with the team today and he told them that he wanted to go to the major leagues. So now the ball is pretty much in rockton's court as far as what they're going to do with him because he had a meeting with the president said you know i've been here i've done everything and i want to i want to test myself in the major so the next step is just to see what the team says and more than likely they're going to they're going to post him i think because they they i don't they kind of promised to post him there wasn't anything in a contract i think they've they've sort of told him like look you

know you do good for us do help us out this year and you know and we're gonna post you we'll hear what you have to say and you know we'll we'll probably try to follow your wishes and he said today that he wishes to be posted so So I guess the soap opera comes now. It's just waiting to see what Rockton is going to say. So you think this will be resolved in the next day or so? This is not going to drag on, I guess, probably? Yeah, I think it's going to get resolved. The Eagles have other stuff that they need to do.

They've got Casey McGee. If he wants to come back, he doesn't get a job in the States. And they've got Andrew Jones. And, you know, if those guys aren't signed yet, and they're probably waiting to see what happens, if the team gets a big influx of money so they can say, look, give us a little bit more money. And the Eagles have things to do. So I think they're going to – and my guess would be they let it sit

for a couple of days for appearances sake, and then they come out and say, you know know we're we're gonna heed our players wishes and we're gonna sacrifice ourselves because he did so much for us and we're gonna let him go and it seems it seems super reasonable for them to say no at this point i mean they just had 40 million dollars you know taken from them unexpectedly so i mean i wouldn't hold it against them at all if they held on. Nomi's a valuable piece of property, and they're a company that has to make profit. But if they decide not to post him, do things get ugly, or does that not happen?

I mean, I suppose it could get ugly, but I don't think. In the past, guys like Uehara wanted to get posted, and the Giants wouldn't do it. And it never got ugly, per se, there. Uehara's kind of a different kind of a guy, too, though. So he would say it in the media, look, I want to leave. And he would say, when I'm a free agent, I'm probably going to think about going to the majors. That's about as ugly as I've ever seen anything get it was really hard just saying yeah i want to be posted and he didn't he didn't cause any trouble he didn't really

talk about it much after that he just he said he wanted to go to the states and the giant said no and that was pretty much the end of it so i don't think it's going to get ugly i i think there would be some some like public backlash against the team if they didn't post him, knowing that he wants to go. But I think in the future, it's going to be different. I think this year, because they kind of, everyone expected them to post him this year because it had been leaked and that the Rockton was going to be favorable to posting him

and this kind of stuff, and that they gave him assurances that they're going to do their best to make him happy and so i think he's going to get posted i think it's the next guy who comes along who's not going to have those assurances in the beginning of the season and with the team knowing that they're going to get only 20 million if they think a guy's worth more than that i think they would hold on to him. But I think Tanaka is going to be able, I think the Eagles are just going to honor his wishes. So the sentiment then, you know, for an average Rakuten fan is it would lie with Tanaka or generally would lie with the posted player

if he wants to leave, the attitude would be, well, he's earned it, he's pitched here long enough and now he wants to leave, the attitude would be, well, he's earned it, he's pitched here long enough, and now he wants to go prove himself, and everyone understands that. There's no bitterness or resentment about the fact that he wants to leave, or any desire to just do anything possible to keep him there, so you can continue to watch him and help your own team win. Yeah, not that I've seen. I know, especially during the Japan series,

there are a lot of fans were saying that, you know, we love Tanaka, we wish he wouldn't go. But, you know, if this is his wish, then we want to honor his wish and we want to see him challenged on the main stage. And, you know, I think especially in Japan, maybe more so than other countries, that's a real big source of pride too,

to see a Japanese guy go over to America and have success and just show people that, you know, Japanese baseball is strong. other countries that's a real big source of pride too to see a japanese guy go over to america and have the and have success and just show people that you know japanese baseball is strong japanese baseball has some of the best players in the world and now the japanese can go to the go to america and be really really good so it's also a source of pride to those fans to say you know our guy the guy who grew up here the guy that we we raised, went over and he dominated in America. So I think the sentiment is definitely with Tanaka as far as getting posted. But as you said, if Rakuten said we're going to keep him, I would almost say that would be the smart move business-wise.

But I think that they're going to let him go, and I think the public sentiment is with him as well. Is there any sort of solution to this that would make everyone happy? Not just the Tanaka situation, but in general, have there been other proposals, alternatives to the posting system? I know in your article, you mentioned one that Don Nomura had proposed. Is there a better way to do this? Or is there a way that you would like to see it done? I'm sure there's a better way out there. I can't really think of what it is. I liked Don's proposal, though, that there be a trigger, or there be some requirement that a player could hit other than free agency

that would allow him to be posted, and that would allow a team to recoup money from his rights because you feel like the Japanese team should get some sort of compensation for losing a guy before his contract is up and before they lose his rights. And I think Don's idea was something that was on the right track. Don, he recommended six years where after six years a guy can just be posted if he wants to go and Then you know the Japanese team would get some percentage of the contract that they would get some sort of posting fee I think that is a more fair way at least because that way

You give the players some sort of freedom because as it is now they still have that kind of freedom Like maybe there's a guy who says oh my god i've always wanted to play for the tampa bay race but they don't have the money to pay a posting fee and then sign me as well he can't go to the race he's stuck with whoever pays the highest bid and that would give players more freedom if they could just hit some sort of requirement or some sort of trigger other than free agency or japanese players can negotiate to get the free agency lowered to you know six or seven years that wouldn't make japanese teams happy because then they'd be losing guys for nothing which is why i think there i like

don's idea of there being some sort of trigger before free agency where a player can if he wants to go to the states he can go to the states but his japanese team gets some sort of percentage of his contract or gets some sort of posting fee something fair for that player's rights i do think something needs to be done for all those players in japan who've always wanted to play for the tampa bay race for the tampa bay race yeah following akino For the Tampa Bay Rays, yeah. Following Akinori even more as footsteps. Right. Who do you think might be the next player that this becomes an issue for after Tanaka? I think Kenta Maeda is a guy who's probably got some interest and who's probably going to maybe start making some noise about being posted soon

but i don't think he's on the level to get the kind of money that tanaka would have garnered i think maybe for my akin right now 20 million is pretty fair so i think you're down the road as far as the next player who's going to get this kind of attention and that this is going to be a real issue for it maybe it may be shohei otani the guy who um i know the red sox were looking at him when he was coming out of high school there were six or seven teams looking at him coming out of high school the dodgers were supposedly really in on him too and he ended up staying here and he's a guy he's he's tall he's he's tall he pitches he plays he pitches and he plays in the outfield, and eventually he'll pick one of those, hopefully, and he'll be really good at it.

And I think he could be the next guy, or Shintaro Fujinami, another guy, who pitches for the Honshin Tigers right now. He was a rookie this year as well. He's another guy who, in a couple of years, if he really fills out, he's got the stuff that he could garner this kind of attention. But I don't think there's going to be anybody in the near, near future who's going to garner this much. I think for the next group of guys,

this $20 million cap isn't going to be much of an issue. And this is a three-year agreement, right? So it could be renegotiated or raised after that, I guess. Right. Okay. Well, you brought us up to date on the situation thank you for that uh you can can read jason's work at the japan times we will link to his most recent column about this in our podcast post at bp if you want to see some more background you can also follow Jason at jcoskey. That's J-C-O-S-K-R-E-Y.

And we will let you get back to your cafe. Thank you, Jason. All right. Thank you. Thanks for having me on.