Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
The Yankees, the Dodgers and the Red Sox are among the big-market, big-payroll teams thought to be interested in signing Masahiro Tanaka.
Masahiro Tanaka, the pitching ace who went 24-0 in 2013 as he led the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles to a Japan Series title, will be allowed to sign with a major league team for the 2014 season, becoming the latest Japanese star to be allowed to leave for the United States before he became a free agent.
The decision to let him go was announced by the team on Christmas Day in Japan, ending weeks of speculation about Tanaka's immediate future and whether Rakuten would back away from its initial stance that he should continue pitching in Japan until after the 2015 season, when he would become free to go anywhere he wanted.
Instead, Rakuten relented and agreed to accept a $20 million posting fee from the major league team that prevails in what is expected to a high-priced, free-agent bidding war among a number of clubs.
In the coming days, Tanaka is expected to choose an American agent to represent him in negotiations with major league teams. The Yankees, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox are among the big-market, big-payroll teams thought to be interested in signing him, with the Yankees having the biggest need of those three teams to bolster their starting rotation. Of those three teams, they are the only one that failed to make the postseason in 2013.
But any major league team that wants to bid for Tanaka has only to agree to pay Rakuten $20 million if they ultimately win out, so there is little to discourage even mid- and small-market teams from jumping in and hoping for the best.
Nevertheless, the winning bidder is likely to be a team like the Yankees that can afford a huge multiyear contract, one that could approach $100 million.
As a result, the 25-year-old Tanaka, who had a 1.27 earned run average to go with his 24-0 record in 2013, is expected to receive a good deal more money than what the Japanese pitchers Daisuke Matsuzaka and Yu Darvish received when they joined the Red Sox and the Texas Rangers.
Matsuzaka got a six-year, $52 million contract from the Red Sox in December 2006. Darvish received a six-year, $60 million contract from the Rangers that began in 2012. However, both of those pitchers were signed under the old, unrestricted posting system in which only the team with the highest posting bid won the right to negotiate with the player. In each instance, the winning posts exceeded $50 million. That, in turn, limited how much the teams then wanted to pay Matsuzaka and Darvish.
Like Matsuzaka and Darvish, Tanaka has a good fastball and an assortment of other pitches. He has been durable, starting 20 or more games in each of his first seven seasons, and has a .739 winning percentage.
The Eagles made clear they wanted Tanaka to stay with the team, not just because they would lose their top pitcher so soon after winning their first title but because they would receive far less for him than hoped under the new posting system. The Eagles were hoping to generate at least $50 million in compensation, roughly what Matsuzaka's and Darvish's teams received.
Any team willing to pay the release fee can negotiate with Tanaka during a 30-day window. The team that signs Tanaka will pay the Eagles the fee in installments. There is no penalty for making a bid and then failing to sign the player.
In letting him leave, Rakuten may have weighed the odds that Tanaka will continue his mastery over batters in 2014 and beyond. It is unlikely he will ever have as dominant a season as he did in 2013; for one thing, he has thrown many innings the past few years. For instance, in the sixth game of the Japan Series this year, he threw 160 pitches and refused to come out of the game. In the clinching seventh game, he appeared in relief. That sequence alone may give some major league teams pause as they ponder how much they might be willing to offer Tanaka in a free-agent contract.
According to Sponichi, a Japanese sports publication, Rakuten may try to form a partnership with whatever team signs Tanaka. The Yomiuri Giants did that after their slugger Hideki Matsui signed with the Yankees before the 2003 season.
As dominant as Tanaka has been during his time with the Eagles, whom he joined after finishing high school, there is no guarantee he will fare as well in the United States. His fastball is unlikely to overpower major league batters, who routinely grapple with pitches nearing 100 miles per hour. Matsuzaka, who is 53-40 in the majors, and Darvish, who is 29-18 after two seasons in the United States, have had to adjust their pitching styles.
Matsuzaka, in particular, encountered adversity after his first two seasons in Boston.
Japanese pitchers also have to learn how to throw off mounds with balls that are different from those in Japan, and deal with umpires with different strike zones. Most Japanese pitchers also speak limited English, making it difficult to communicate with catchers and coaches.
Japanese baseball fans are likely to continue rooting for Tanaka in the United States because they take pride in seeing their stars play overseas. But his departure is likely to stoke fears that Japanese professional baseball, a source of national pride, is turning into a second-class league.
"They are becoming a feeder system for the M.L.B.," said Robert Whiting, who has written several books on Japanese baseball. "Japanese pro baseball has all but disappeared from prime time network television."
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Tanaka Mystery Now Has an Ending: In U.S.
Dengan url
https://dunialuasekali.blogspot.com/2013/12/tanaka-mystery-now-has-ending-in-us.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Tanaka Mystery Now Has an Ending: In U.S.
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Tanaka Mystery Now Has an Ending: In U.S.
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar