Posting System

The Posting System is a player transfer system between Nippon Pro Baseball and Major League Baseball. It was created to allow teams to receive compensation for players who would like to play in the Major Leagues before becoming a free agent and to avoid situations like those of Hideo Nomo or Alfonso Soriano, who had used loopholes in a prior NPB-MLB agreement to switch countries. In 2012, the posting system was first use in an agreement between MLB and the Korea Baseball Organization.

[edit] Process

A player may be posted from November 1 to March 1. For a player to be posted, both the team and player must agree on the posting; usually the player requests to be posted. The team then notifies the NPB Commissioner's Office that the player will be posted, who then notifies the MLB, which notifies all of its teams. The MLB teams then have four days to submit a "silent" bid for the right to negotiate a contract with the player to the MLB Commissioner's Office. After the fourth day, the NPB team (via the Commissioner's Office) is notified of the highest bidder and has four days to accept or reject the bid. If the bid is accepted, the winning MLB team has thirty (30) days to reach an agreement with the player. If the bid is rejected, the player is not posted.

If the player signs a contract with the MLB team by the end of the signing period, then the player becomes part of that MLB team and the NPB team receives the bid money. If the player does not sign a contract with the MLB team by the end of the signing period, the player is returned to the NPB team and the NPB team does not receive the bid money. Negotiation rights come with an implicit obligation to bargain with the player in good faith; however, the penalty for bad faith bargaining is unclear.

[edit] Posted Players

[edit] Sources

• ポスティングシステム (Japanese)
• ポスティング・システム（入札制度）結果一覧 (Japanese)