The MLB Commissioners Office and Nippon Professional Baseball are closing in on a posting agreement that the sides are optimistic will be in place by Nov. 1, two sources told The Post.
The best pitcher in Japan, Masahiro Tanaka, is expected to be posted this offseason, and the Yankees are likely to be aggressive in trying to win the post.
There had been speculation the system would undergo radical changes, with perhaps even the teams with the three highest posting bids all gaining the rights to negotiate with the players. I have been told there will be alterations in the process, but still only one team will win the post and have exclusive negotiating rights.
It is possible, as a way to give the player more power to chose his destination, he might get to pick a singular team from, say, the top two or three bidders.
The posting system was created mainly to give Japanese teams a way to get paid if they agree to let a player go prior to free agency (Japanese players need nine years of service to gain free agency to come to the States). In the process up to now, interested MLB teams gave a sealed bid and the high bidder was awarded an exclusive 30-day period to sign the player. If no deal was struck, the player stayed in Japan and no second American team received an opportunity to sign the player.
In the most significant recent examples, the Red Sox, with a bid of $51.1 million, won the rights to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka and the Rangers, with a bid of $51.7 million, won the rights to negotiate with Yu Darvish. Teams still have to sign the player after winning the post. Both MLB and the Players Association were hoping a system could be forged in which the post was not quite as expensive as a way to keep the money here for players.
The winning post does not count toward salary and thus is not calculated in for purposes of figuring out the luxury tax payroll. That is one reason Tanaka — beyond talent — entices the Yankees, who are trying to get under the $189 million payroll threshold for 2014.
The Padres recently completed organizational meetings in Arizona and came away believing they will retain Chase Headley in his walk year rather than trade him. San Diego will listen to offers for the switch-hitting third baseman, who has been on the Yankees’ radar.
The Padres will listen if teams are interested. But San Diego believes it is more in a win-now mode and will deal him only for cost-effective players ready for the majors now or close to the majors. Padres officials feel, because of that, the Yanks are not a match. This is one of the problems of having an unproductive farm system — not only are you not feeding the big league team useful parts, but those parts do not exist for trades.