Posting system
The five highest-profile players that have been acquired by MLB teams through the posting system are Ichiro Suzuki, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Yu Darvish, Masahiro Tanaka, and Shohei Ohtani.
Giants executives were impressed with his talent and on September 1, 1964 Murakami was promoted, thus becoming the first Japanese player to play in MLB.
The first of these occurred in the winter of 1994 when pitcher Hideo Nomo, with the help of agent Don Nomura, became the second Japanese-born player to play in MLB, 30 years after Murakami.
[5][6] Nomo utilized this loophole by voluntarily retiring from NPB to terminate his contract with the Buffaloes, circumvent its reserve clause and play in MLB.
He announced his retirement from NPB in late 1994 and signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers in February 1995, where he won the National League Rookie of the Year award.
Following this decision, Irabu contemplated a number of different options, including playing in NPB until he became a free agent, and taking the matter to the U.S. judicial system.
[8] The final incident occurred in 1998, when Alfonso Soriano was unable to leave the Hiroshima Toyo Carp due to contract restrictions.
Soriano disliked the intense Japanese practice schedule, and the Carp denied him a salary increase from $45,000 (the league's minimum) to $180,000 per year.
This prompted Carp executives to file an injunction against Soriano and send letters to MLB teams demanding that they cease all negotiations with him.
[10] In 1998, Orix BlueWave general manager Shigeyoshi Ino rewrote the 1967 United States – Japanese Player Contract Agreement, when he drafted the "posting system".
[14] It sought to address each of the problems brought up by the Nomo, Irabu and Soriano cases, by requiring MLB teams to place "bids" for NPB players.
These bids became the basis of transfer fees that are paid as compensation to NPB teams whose star players sign with MLB.
Since the end of the 2018 NPB and MLB seasons, posting fees have been based on the type of contract a player signs and the deal's value.
[20] Mac Suzuki, Micheal Nakamura, Kazuhito Tadano, and Junichi Tazawa are the only Japanese players to have debuted in MLB without having played in NPB.
[24] When a player under contract with a Nippon Professional Baseball team wishes to play in Major League Baseball, he must notify his current team's management and request that they make him available for posting during the next posting period (November 1 – March 1 through the 2013 season, and November 1 – February 1 in the current agreement).
[16] The transfer fee was not included when calculating an MLB team's total payroll, which is subject to a luxury tax when it exceeds $155 million.
[13] Much of the criticism of the system stems from its forcing NPB players to negotiate their contracts solely with the MLB team that submitted the highest bid.
The Japan Times columnist Marty Kuehnert believes that since no other team is allowed to submit competitive counter-offers, negotiations result in salaries below the player's market value.
[115] It has been suggested that this is a violation of the Anti-Monopoly Act, a Japanese antitrust law that prohibits parties from signing an international agreement or contract that "contains such matters as constitute an unreasonable restraint of trade or unfair business practices".
[116] The Japan Professional Baseball Players Association (JPBPA) was not consulted before the system was implemented by NPB club owners, and did not subsequently ratify it.
However, according to one JPBPA official, the Japanese court process is too long and involved; therefore, the "problem can't be helped".
[117] Yomiuri Giants club representative Hidetoshi Kiyotake has expressed dislike of the system, because it enables Major League Baseball to poach players from Japan.
[122] After his silent auction was closed, it was revealed that Matsuzaka had drawn a bid of $51.1 million, shocking American and Japanese baseball executives.
Sheinin believed that the Red Sox had foreseen the contractual stalemate and had submitted a high bid simply to deny the New York Yankees an opportunity to negotiate with Matsuzaka.
The team paid approximately $103.1 million in total, including the transfer fee and contract, to acquire the pitcher.
Kurkjian claims that other MLB executives already believe that a traditional free agent structure, where the highest bidder wins, would be better than the current system.
