Tag Archives: Hideo Nomo

Baseball, Commentary, History, Paid Content

Between Roki and a hard place

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It’s less than 11 days until the start of spring training, and unless the Lotte Marines have decided to keep Roki Sasaki’s contract signing a secret–to prevent him from facing questions from the media–one assumes he has not come to terms for the 2024 season.

While the former is possible, given the controversial nature of his offseason, the latter makes sense from the Marines’s side if they feel they are caught between a Roki and a hard place.

Roki Sasaki and the revolution

Assume for an instant, that Roki Sasaki DOES have the Marines by the balls, with a contractual obligation that the club to post him at a time of his choosing, what would you do if you were the team?

If such an obligation does exist, the Marines situation would appear to be like that of Peter Lorre’s character Joel Cairo in his first encounter with Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade in “The Maltese Falcon.”

When You'Re Slapped You'Ll Take It And Like It Humphrey Bogart GIFfrom When You'Re Slapped You'Ll Take It And Like It GIFs

First, I’ll explain below why I firmly believe Sasaki is the one holding the posting-demand whip hand, and after that, how the Marines don’t have to just take it and like it, but can play hardball in a way no Japanese club has in ages.

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Baseball, Commentary, Paid Content

A lot has changed Part 1

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Two Japanese baseball players this month have signed record contracts. On Dec. 9, Shohei Ohtani agreed to play 10 years for the Los Angeles Dodgers for $700 million, making the two-way superstar the highest paid team-sport athlete in the world. Less than two weeks later, Yoshinobu Yamamoto became baseball’s highest-paid pitcher with a $325 million 12-year contract, also with the Dodgers.

Yamamoto, whose contract eclipsed Masahiro Tanaka’s $155-million seven-year contract with the New York Yankees as the largest ever signed by a player upon his entry to MLB, earned the Orix Buffaloes a $50.6 million. If Yamamoto has options to quit the Dodgers after six seasons, the Buffaloes will not receive anything for his seasons from Year 7 to 12 until he actually remains with LA. If he stays in LA, the Dodgers will have gotten an interest-free loan from Orix, and if Yamamoto quits, and signs a huge contract elsewhere, Orix will not get one single yen.

It’s not an elegant system, but MLB is not run in order to be elegant. It’s run to maximize monopoly profit and generate high return on investment, and while fans of Japanese baseball are proud that guys who grew here and honed their craft in our major leagues, the Central and Pacific, are recognized by MLB as among the most valuable in the world.

But what about our major leagues?

Daisuke Matsuzaka’s $52-million contract with the Boston Red Sox on Nov. 2, 2006, led then Lotte Marines manager Bobby Valentine to say that NPB’s talent drain would put it on track toward following America’s Negro leagues into extinction.

That hasn’t happened, because there is a market for professional baseball IN Japan, where fans can see games live and cheer for THEIR teams.

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