The anticipation of Shohei Ohtani making his MLB debut in 2018 inched closer to becoming reality when a reported agreement was struck to extend the guidelines of the posting system with Nippon Professional Baseball for another year.
Doing so would allow Ohtani’s club, the Nippon-Ham Fighters, to receive a maximum of $20 million in a posting fee for their star player. Assuming Ohtani was to sign a contract with a Major League team, they would then make the payment to the Fighters.
While the agreement was a step in the right direction, it required final approval from the MLB Players Association. According to Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball, the union has reservations over signing off on such a deal:
One week after MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball worked out a “tentative agreement” on a $20 million posting system for Japanese two-way megastar Shohei Otani, the players union balked at the arrangement on Wednesday, meaning there remains a significant hurdle to be cleared before Otani makes his move from the Nippon Ham Fighters to the majors, FanRag Sports has learned.
There was a sense a resolution may be in place by December, but it now appears Monday is the deadline to determine whether or not Otani will come stateside for the 2018 season:
Breaking: players union sets Monday deadline to resolve posting issue. So in 4 days otani could know if he'll be able to jump to mlb in '18.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) November 16, 2017
A general assumption is the players association is taking umbrage with the lucrative amount the Fighters would receive, while Ohtani’s earning power is capped by international spending limits. Of course, it was the players who argued for more stringent rules, because of a disparity between signing bonuses for draftees and those for international free agents.
At just 23 years old, Ohtani is facing a scenario in which he would not receive more than a $4 million bonus. If he was to wait two more years and make the jump to the Majors at age 25, he’d be exempt from international bonus pools and likely sign a contract worth nine figures.
Prior to the new Collective Bargaining Agreement imposing stricter guidelines, Ohtani said money was not a concern of his.
