Two things here my friends…
First, Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball have virtually agreed on a new posting system for Japanese players, according to Ken Davidoff of The Post who has been on top of this story from the word go.
“The system has been tweaked so the team posting the top bid will still win exclusive negotiating rights to the player, but now the actual price will be an average of the top two bids. In other words, if the Yankees bid $100 million and the Dodgers bid $90 million for Tanaka, then the Yankees would win the rights for a price of $95 million.”
Once the agreement is announced, the bidding will begin for Masahiro Tanaka and most agree he will end up going to the New York Yankees.
Speaking of the Yankees, there seems to be a complete misunderstanding by many Met fans who point to the Yankees as another team that is slashing payroll. They base this on comments made by Hal Steinbrenner who wants to get Yankees payroll under $189 million dollars.
Wake up people…
All that is happening here is that the Yankees are sick and tired of kicking in an extra $30 million in luxury tax every year to the Bud Selig Retirement Fund.
The $189 million threshold is the exact amount teams can spend without being assessed a luxury tax. It wasn’t a number that Hal pulled out of the air.
As a matter of fact, the reason why the Yankees will go hard after Tanaka is because the positing fee doesn’t count toward the payroll.
So if the Yankees bid $100 million for Tanaka and win the rights to negotiate with him, essentially they could be playing with a $289 payroll in 2014 or basically whatever they bid over and above the $189 million threshold.
The Yankees are one of the richest teams in baseball and the most recognized and lucrative sports brands in the world. They are not reducing payroll because the team is hemorrhaging millions like the Mets are. They’re just tired of funding bottom tier teams with their annual $30 million luxury tax donation and getting nothing to show for it.
