ORLANDO, Fla. — The Yankees’ pursuit of Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka is in jeopardy due to an old-school, small market vs. big market battle that broke out Thursday morning at the Major League Baseball owners’ meetings here at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes.
According to multiple sources present at the general session, which is overseen by commissioner Bud Selig, Yankees president Randy Levine spoke animatedly on behalf of the big-market teams after Pirates president Frank Coonelly led the charge on behalf of small-market teams, who feel that they are priced out of the sweepstakes for star players of Tanaka’s caliber.
Because MLB has yet to formally hear back from Nippon Professional Baseball, there is some movement among the small-market contingent to change the posting agreement — or just eliminate it altogether.
MLB COO Rob Manfred, in a news conference Thursday, said, “We have to have some additional discussions [among the clubs] before they can accept anything. When we gave them the offer, we told them we needed a timely response because there could be shifting winds. There are shifting winds.”
A complete elimination of the posting system would relegate Tanaka to two more seasons with the Rakuten Golden Eagles (before he would be eligible for free agency) and damage the Yankees’ offseason plans. They liked signing Tanaka not only because of his talent, but because the posting fee to the Eagles — in order to win the rights to negotiate exclusively with Tanaka — would not count against the luxury-tax threshold.
The Post reported Monday there was virtual agreement on a plan that called for a moderate tweak of the old system: The team with the highest bid on a posted player would still win exclusive negotiating rights with that player, but the amount of the bid would be an average of the top two bids. A source said Thursday the bid would be calculated under a more complex formula than that, still using the top two bids as the basis. Furthermore, a team would be fined if it failed to sign the player after securing the negotiating rights.
Stalling by NPB, however, has put that agreement in jeopardy. In an eventful general session — the owners also approved the funding of expanded instant replay for 2014 — Coonelly kicked off the posting debate when he proposed the posting fee be subject to the luxury tax. That’s when Levine erupted, wondering why there was no such contention over the system involved in signing Cuban players. The White Sox recently signed Cuban free agent Jose Abreu to a six-year, $68-million contract.
This fury could blow over soon: NPB could accept the proposal, MLB could accept NPB’s acceptance and the Tanaka bidding war could lift off as planned. Or the small-market owners could succeed in blowing up a critical component of the Yankees’ plans.
Joel Sherman contributed to this story.