A's win rights to negotiate with Hisashi Iwakuma

[SlightlyStoopid]

Don Nomura (Iwakuma's agent) tweets "Iwakuma's Oakland Athletics!!!!"

People should remember Iwakuma from '09 World Baseball Classic were he shut out Cuba for six innings. He then got the nod over the staff ace, Yu Darvish, to pitch in the championship game against South Korea where he went 7.2 innings giving up 2 ER. Featuring a career ERA of 3.32 and plus command of 4 pitches Iwakuma should be a successful pitcher in the US.

With around $20M coming off the books this offseason it looks like the A's are actually spending money. The surprising part is that it's on more pitching. Common sense would be that the A's would be looking to add some offense but Beane never really does what people expect. Looks to be the start of a busy offseason in Oakland.

[MaudDib]

Might not be a bad move. There pitching was some what lucky last year and if anyone is aware of it, it would be Beane. He also knows that pitching is one of the best currency's in the game and could be looking to move someone next season.

[dAnzac]

Athletics Nation scooped MLBTR by about 12 hours weirdly

If Iwakuma can do a passable impression of Kuroda for a cheaper price, this is an awesome deal
If it means we have the flexibility to get top dollar (an awesome bat) for Cahill, even better

[GiantsFan14]

Athletics Nation scooped MLBTR by about 12 hours weirdly

If Iwakuma can do a passable impression of Kuroda for a cheaper price, this is an awesome deal
If it means we have the flexibility to get top dollar (an awesome bat) for Cahill, even better

gonna be tough for him to be cheaper than kuroda when they already paid a $17MM posting fee.

[dAnzac]

Athletics Nation scooped MLBTR by about 12 hours weirdly

If Iwakuma can do a passable impression of Kuroda for a cheaper price, this is an awesome deal
If it means we have the flexibility to get top dollar (an awesome bat) for Cahill, even better

gonna be tough for him to be cheaper than kuroda when they already paid a $17MM posting fee.

Well they can (not that I think they will) offer him a contract for 6 years to get good value.
I think they'll offer something like 4y x 5ish mil with options for year 5 and 6.
So at minimum they are paying 37mil for 4 years. Kuroda should get something similar to that per year.

[SlightlyStoopid]

Talks have stalled. It being reported that Iwakuma wanted Zito like money.

ROFLMAO!!! No way in hell that's happening.

[slomo007]

I think the system is messed up. Oakland now isn't on the hook for anything and yet the rest of the league cannot sign him either. Seems like it would be easy to consistently just block people from signing Japanese players but pretending to be interested.

[MTUCache]

I think the system is messed up. Oakland now isn't on the hook for anything and yet the rest of the league cannot sign him either. Seems like it would be easy to consistently just block people from signing Japanese players but pretending to be interested.

Definitely messed up... although I don't think I'd go as far as some of the Japanese agents have and compare it to human trafficking.

Oakland should be on the hook for at least half of the transfer fee (and at least half that should be given to the player if he ends up going back to Japan), if for no other reason than to avoid the big game of "chicken" as they get to the end of the 30-day negotiating period.

As for using it as a strategy... well... we can see how Boras made that work for the Red Sox in the DiceK drama.

[GiantsFan14]

Oakland should be on the hook for at least half of the transfer fee (and at least half that should be given to the player if he ends up going back to Japan), if for no other reason than to avoid the big game of "chicken" as they get to the end of the 30-day negotiating period.6

then what's to stop teams from just posting players to collect half the fee when the player has no intention of signing? if this were the case, posting fees would either become so small that it wouldn't be worth it for japanese teams, or mlb teams would just stop paying posting fees all together. right now, it's up to the japanese team to pick the mlb team who they believe combines the biggest posting fee with the highest likelihood of signing the player. it's not oakland's fault that iwakuma is asking for way too much money and they shouldn't be punished for it.

[MTUCache]

then what's to stop teams from just posting players to collect half the fee when the player has no intention of signing? if this were the case, posting fees would either become so small that it wouldn't be worth it for japanese teams, or mlb teams would just stop paying posting fees all together. right now, it's up to the japanese team to pick the mlb team who they believe combines the biggest posting fee with the highest likelihood of signing the player. it's not oakland's fault that iwakuma is asking for way too much money and they shouldn't be punished for it.

There's going to be problems with the system however it happens, because they're basically trying to come up with a way to buy a player out of an existing contract. I'm in two minds about it really... part of me thinks that a player should not be eligible to switch leagues at all while under contract (and should wait for FA), and the other part of me thinks that there must be some way to figure out what it's worth to buy a player out of his contract without messing up the entire framework that defines the process.

As it stands right now, once the player declares he wants to be posted, he has now lost all power in the negotiations other than just pulling the plug (and going back to a team he's just pissed off). He has no ability to negotiate in a fair manner because there are no teams competing over his services to determine a fair-market-value.

Add in the problems that high posting fees present to most teams, and you're creating even more problems. Yes, Seattle, Tampa, and LA have pulled this off (in addition to NY and BOS of course), but we're looking at a pretty rare set of circumstances where this works... This process has only been done successfully 10 times (and half of those just low-money or minor league deals).

If NPB players and clubs knew that they could get transfer payments for letting guys go, everyone would be available for transfer (at a price), much as it is in European football. Yes, that would definitely make the transfer prices go down... but I don't see any other way of incentivising the MLB club to negotiate fairly, unless you're going to get rid of the bidding process altogether and allow multiple teams to negotiate with both the player and the NPB club at the same time.

I wonder if there's not some way to incorporate the football "on loan" system which seems to work... that would make for a lot of messed up salaries with such different leagues though. Not to mention messing up any salary-cap or luxury-tax system in place.