Word on the virtual street from NPBTracker's Patrick Newman says that MLB and NPB are coming to an agreement on the new posting fees for Japanese players, with a hard limit of $20m. I'm kind of surprised that the NPB owners agreed to this, and wonder where their slice is. Maybe they'll get a percentage of whatever the contract is as well or something?
Anyway, the big issue is what will happen when the inevitable tied bid pops up. Japanese reports yesterday suggested that it would go to the team with the worst record the previous year, which ew. The LA Times's Bill Shaikin claims that the player could choose which of the teams to negotiate with. Given how the small market teams are the ones that pushed these changes to the posting fees to begin with, I'd be more inclined to believe that the new setup is the former, which is probably bad news for the Cubs.
Despite having the fourth worst record, I don't see how Masahiro Tanaka gets past the Astros if this really is the new system. Their organization is in pretty terrible shape, and the big question is whether the new, sharp front office thinks it would be worth it to have him around on what is likely to be a losing team for a while longer, Of course, the same goes for the Cubs but at least they can point to their wave of young talent heading up through their suddenly high-ranked farm system. Not to mention that Tanaka is going to ask for (and probably deserve) nine figures. It's not like the Astros have a lot of payroll getting in their way right now, and revenue sharing could help them a lot.
Comments
My hunch is Door #3, where everyone who “wins” gets negotiating rights and their posting fee is non-refundable. Only way it makes sense for NPB.
GBTSQuote Reply
@ uncle dave:
I would say it’s pure accounting. The Cubs saved, what, $8 million last year in trades? How much the year before? That money went in Ricketts pocket. Maybe he spent a bit more in the draft and international free agency than he would have, but not by a whole lot. It’s not like he way overspent in either of them.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ GBTS:
I think you’re right too. It makes no sense to have the ‘player decides’ option since it would just mean the Yankees/Red Sox/whoever is winning right now gets to save some money. If a player had to pick between the Yankees and the Brewers that’s an easy decision (dying laughing).
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
If the small market teams pushed this, they’d still lose out. Doesn’t make sense for them to push that kind of system.
dmick89Quote Reply
A question I have is whether or not the Astros can afford to be wrong about Tanaka. The chances he becomes another Matsuzaka are much higher than he becomes the next Darvish (which is one of the reasons I don’t really give a shit if the Cubs go after him; my interest is more the chance to see something of some magnitude happen than anything else).
It appears the Astros have payroll space to go for him, but do they have enough space to take the hit if he flops?
Smokestack LightningQuote Reply
If it’s door number 3, and the Royals and Yankees tie, who ends up offering the most? Yankees win every time.
I have a hard time believing NPB agreed to this. There has to be something else in it for the. Maybe there is a minimum bid for players now? That would probably make up for the lost money in posting fees. Minimum of $5 million for every player and a max of $20 million.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
It’s significantly better for small-market teams than the status quo. At least now the Brewers can show Tanaka a $20M powerpoint presentation. They didn’t even have a chance of looking at an NPB player, much less talking to one, before.
GBTSQuote Reply
@ Smokestack Lightning:
It depends on the rules. Houston should have a sizable payroll and once did so I’m not sure it’s much of an issue.
dmick89Quote Reply
I think every team would bid on Tanaka at $20 million. Every single team. This does not make sense for NPB.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
I don’t know. You can’t overspend on the draft or IFAs without significant consequences in subsequent years under the new CBA, so it’s tough to hang a purely financial motive on the moves the team made there. The various trades the team made brought back more in value than the payroll saved, so it’s tough to say that those were done for purely financial reasons. And the Cubs were in on other free agents (like Anibal Sanchez) as well. Just because you don’t wind up signing a guy doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t have done so if given the chance. For all we know, they might be ready to outbid the Yankees for Cano, but have already been told that he’s not interested in playing for the Cubs (hates deep dish, is pissed at how they treated Sammy, whatever).
There’s going to be a point at which we can start to evaluate whether or not the owners are willing to spend the right amount of money to support a regular contender. But right now, the Cubs’ behavior is consistent with what you’d expect a team in their situation to do and with what other similarly positioned teams have done in recent years.
As for Mark Cuban, it’s speculation on my part but I think he’d be equally likely to deliver you the Angels as he would the Yankees. Taking it as a given that spending money = success and not spending money = apathy is lazy and somewhat irresponsible, with all due respect.
uncle daveQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
?? Then NPB would pocket $600M. If they all get negotiating rights, that is. Again, no one knows at this point.
GBTSQuote Reply
@Uncle Dave,
I think your barbecue episode with S. Californians comes from regional cultural/linguistic differences in the US. Growing up in Michigan, you didn’t “eat barbecue” or “have barbecue.” Those constructions I would associate with pulled or chopped pork (or beef) with some sort of tomato or vinegar-based sauce, especially since I’ve relocated to the Carolinas. Instead we would “have a BBQ” or get together “to BBQ” which both meant “to cook something on the grill.” Hamburgers, steak, chicken wings, whatever. I don’t think the upper midwest has a barbecue custom, so BBQ becomes something much more generic. If we were going to have chopped smoked pork/beef with a sauce of some sort, that would be a “BBQ sandwich.”
SVBQuote Reply
@ uncle dave:
I have no problem with those trades. It helped them get better. I said as much at the time of each trade.
I think I’ve been somewhat clear that I don’t think that. I know it because I began debating months ago whether or not to say it once more in some comment I was writing.
As for Cuban, there’s no doubt whatsoever in my mind he’s not the least bit nervous to come in and make necessary changes. That puts the team ahead of this team’s schedule by two years. They would be better because they would have had someone who had an idea what he was doing on day one. Give credit to Ricketts for not coming in and doing the same when he had no clue what he was doing. Very smart.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ GBTS:
No, MLB would never agree to such a system. I think it’s somewhat safe to say that MLB won’t be spending more money. If anything, it will be less.
But yeah, if MLB was dumb enough to create some max bid system in which NPB teams keep the money from all bids, then yes, $600 million to the NPB team. There’s no chance of that.
dmick89Quote Reply
So if the Cubs miss out on Choo, Tanaka, and Cano, and then trade Samardzija, what does that do to the timeline for winning?
This is what I worry about. I worry that the Cubs somehow come away from this offseason adding less talent to the MLB team than they did last offseason.
EdwinQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Cuban stuck with Don Nelson as coach/GM for five years after he bought the Mavs, and the arrival of Nowitzki and Nash predated his arrival as well. He made changes right off the bat, no doubt, but that’s hardly more aggressive from a player personnel point of view than what Ricketts did in Chicago. The Mavs were also in better shape in 2000 than the Cubs were in 2009.
I don’t think it’s particularly fair to say Ricketts’ decision to keep key staff on board during the transition was a matter of cluelessness. The Cubs organization is a very large business, and you don’t just scorch the Earth on day 1. Change in that context takes a lot of time.
uncle daveQuote Reply
Do you guys think something behind closed doors spooked NPB into settling for such a low max bid in order not to be frozen out of MLB money in future years? I am not sure how to better articulate it.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ uncle dave:
I expect Cuban would be more aggressive after years of owning the Mavs.
Ricketts was meticulous when he took over and by his own admission at the time, wanted to get to know the organization from top to bottom. It was the right thing to do when you have as much experience owning a team as I do. That meticulousness, let’s not sugarcoat it, cost them the 2010 draft when they should have been spending big bucks.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
are we sure what the agreement is yet
dmick89Quote Reply
Ben Badler says the negotiations will continue tomorrow.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
Fair enough. A far bigger obstacle to the team’s success was the failure to spend big on the draft prior to 2010, IMO. It’s pretty easy to lose focus on just how much of a mess there was to clean up post-Zell.
uncle daveQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
It’s mostly overreactions and panic right now, the only “confirmed” item is the $20MM max post bid. I imagine Thursday is when they’ll hammer out everything else.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ uncle dave:
Zell deserves blame. The Tribune too. I just think Cubs fans have shifted in a direction that I’m far from comfortable with. I get the feeling a lot of the fans almost wait to see what the organization does and then defend it as the right decision. I’m not saying you or anyone here does it, but it’s happening and I find that to be as troubling as what Alvin has spent years doing, which is basically the same thing.
As I’ve said before, I don’t think you and I disagree all that much. Our differences are fairly small. I’d not have signed Ellsbury for that money, but I love the win now mentality that the Yankees always have. I want the Cubs to have that and yes, that includes homegrown talent. It also includes spending big and let’s face it, only the Dodgers are going to be throwing money around like that.
Another thing that kind of fucked the Cubs are these regional tv deals. The Cubs will eventually get paid, but their advantage is smaller than it was before because of these.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH0YPXb49q0
See, that’s your problem right there. Talking to Cubs fans about pretty much anything is going to be a king-hell drag.
I’d make the argument that the TV deal and the impending Wrigley renovation are further arguments for short-term austerity, but regardless I think we’re going to see a pretty spectacular divide in terms of spenders and non-spenders right around the corner. It’ll be interesting to see how MLB overreacts to it.
uncle daveQuote Reply
NPB agreed to this because the alternative is no posting system at all, which means Japanese players just wait until they complete their contracts in Japan and become FA for MLB. In that situation, NPB teams get $0. They’re agreeing to some system because they want to get some $$ for in effect selling their star players to MLB.
I agree with Brett at BN though that MLB bids should be partially guaranteed; it risks nothing to bid the max $20MM and lose, then the team still spends $0. Any bid should be 50% going to NPB team, so for instance if the White Sox bid $8M on a player, the NPB team gets $4M of that no matter which team wins the bid.
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
Gammons sez the team may elect not to post Tanaka.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
If they’re getting fucked out of millions of dollars, I wouldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some settlement where Tanaka kicked in some of the dough he gets to buy his freedom, though.
uncle daveQuote Reply
@ uncle dave:
The latest is from Badler, who says they’ll still post Tanaka. But probably not very happily.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
I’m not suggesting they keep ALL bids, just bids that grant negotiation rights.
There’s no chance all 30 teams bid $20M on Tanaka. Do you honestly think the Rays would bid $20M to negotiate with Tanaka, knowing (A) the $20M is non-refundable, and (B) the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels, etc. are not only likely to bid the $20M post but will also blow away your subsequent contract offer to Tanaka? Only a handful are likely to post the max in a system where it’s nonrefundable.
gbts22Quote Reply
Wesley Wright! W00t
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ gbts22:
Ok, yeah, but do you really think it’s gonna be non-refundable? Wouldn’t that system benefit large market teams?
dmick89Quote Reply
Rice Cube wrote:
(dying laughing). I went to an Astros game last year and the funniest thing was that Wesley Wright featured so prominently in all of their marketing. I think he was the only guy on the team who had been there for more than two years.
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
I actually like the signing very much. He doesn’t completely suck, he’s cheap, and he stands in RF every now and then.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Eh, I could see large market teams advocating it just because of the blind nature of the bidding system. A team like Texas might have argued hard that it was bullshit they had to shell over $50M+ for Darvish when the next highest bid could have been something like $30M. In a system where everyone who max bids gets to negotiate, teams who want to make serious offers will be able to do so without wondering if they’re blind-bidding against themselves to win the post.
Though the more I think about it the more I realize I really don’t have a clue. Either MLB (non-refundable) or NPB (only the winning team posts) got fucked real hard in a max-bid system. The more I think about it the more I would tend to agree with you that it was not MLB. If that’s the case, then NPB agreed to a deal that will literally cost them tens of millions of dollars this offseason when Tanaka goes. It’s still likely a hybrid of the two, where only the winners pay the post but NPB gets a percentage cut of the player’s contract.
GBTSQuote Reply
I wish someone would just come out and fucking tell us how it works. (dying laughing)
GBTSQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
Paul Sullivan is on the job. Chill out. We’ll know within 3 years.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Suburban kidQuote Reply
new shit: http://obstructedview.net/news-and-rumors/cubs-sign-wesley-wright.html
dmick89Quote Reply
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