Major League Baseball and the Nippon Professional Baseball league have been talking new rules for the Japanese posting system and they have virtually agreed on a new deal. The new deal could be announced as early as today just in time for the Rakuten Golden Eagles to post Masahiro Tanaka. There is no way the Tanaka bidding will happen before these new rules are in place so all eyes are on this announcement being made relatively soon.
We have heard that the changes to the system would include the top three teams being announced to the player, Tanaka in this case, and the player would choose the winner but that does not seem to be the case. The biggest major change that is being reported right now is that the biggest bidder will win exclusive rights to negotiate with the player but will only have to pay an average of the posting fee between the two highest bids. For example if the Yankees bid $100 million and the Dodgers bid $50 million the Yankees would only have to pay $75 million to talk to Tanaka.
There has also been talks of teams having to pay a percentage of the posting fee if they fail to sign a player in hopes of deterring teams that just bid just to block rival teams. I do not see this being an issue with Tanaka but it is interesting to watch for if it does occur. Whatever the new rules are we need to get this agreed upon, written up, and announced so the Yankees can win this thing.
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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)