The Chiba Lotte Marines have announced that they will accept the high bid for infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka's negotiating rights, tweets Joe Christensen of The Star Tribune. The high bidder will likely be announced tomorrow, according to a second Christensen tweet.
Accepting the high bid is just one step in the process; whichever team won the bidding will have 30 days to work out a contract with Nishioka, not exactly a given as we've seen with Hisashi Iwakuma. The Twins are said to be "very much in on" Nishioka, though the Orioles and Padres did not submit bids. The Giants, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Cardinals were said to be uncertain about pursuing him.
The 26-year-old shortstop hit .346/.423/.482 with 11 homers and 22 steals this season, though it was by far the best season of his career. In parts of eight seasons with Chiba Lotte, Nishioka is a .293/.364/.426 hitter. ESPN's Keith Law (Insider req'd) called him "valuable as an everyday guy on a second-division club," while NPB Tracker's Patrick Newman sees him as a Ryan Theriot/Chone Figgins type.
We were supposed to know who was the highest bidder on monday…
Word going around for the last day or two was that there was going to be a press conference tomorrow. There’s been speculation on whether it is actually going to be tonight, because it is already Friday in Japan (almost noon).
Confusing :/, I would like the Cards to get him, But if the twins do, that somewhat rules out the O-Dog, Which is even better.
I think most Twins fans feel that there is zero chance that Hudson comes back. It doesn’t look like Hardy and Hudson can both be kept, money-wise. Hardy is needed much more than Hudson is. Even Hudson has said that he doesn’t think he’ll be back.
Plus, if they don’t get this guy, it’s about time they find out about Alexi Casilla as a starter….which is something the GM has already mentioned.
The press conference will be held on Friday – by Major League Baseball and not the Chiba Lotte Marines – so I think it’s safe to assume it’ll be daylight Friday in the U.S.
I hope the Mariners prevail here, but I’m used to failure.
It would pretty interesting if it was the Yankees who won the bid. Sorry Derek.
Does anybody else notice who’s tweeting those tweets….Joe Christensen of the MINNEAPOLIS Star Tribune. He is all things Twins. So I’m not trying to forshadow or guess anything, but my guess is the Twins won the bidding, and I certainly hope so!! Go Twins!!
I wouldn’t mind him as long as the Twins don’t get rid of Hardy. My other fear is that he’ll be the positional version of Dice K….craptacular.
I actually think he’s going to be awesome. Kind of like a poor mans Ichiro. 2B and the perfect twins player
I hope he will be if he comes to the Twins. I’ve seen some video and he doesn’t look bad, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be good in America.
If we do get him, Yoshi is going to have to change his number.
What’s his current number?
He is number 7
Sorry Joe, we’ve got a newcomer, going to have to change your number!
No, more like a poor mans Kei Igawa. He’ll be overmatched here against most MLB ptichers; Nishioka will do well in AAA but will be a marginal big leaguer. He’s better than most Japanese 2B but then so is Nick Punto.
Hey Dice “K” won a world series for the Red Sox so as much as people say he has no value he will always have 2007, so I am sure if the Twins found out they would have a world championship by signing him and him being a “positional version of Dice K” they would give him whatever his demands were.
You are the only Red Sox fan (I’m assuming you’re a Red Sox fan, sorry if you’re not) who I’ve ever seen defend him. It’s surprising. The guy is just way overrated and extremely not worth the money. It’s not like he’s the only reason the Sox won the championship.
He did okay in 2007 & was great in 2008, though I’d argue that he was extremely lucky in 2008. Most Red Sox fans I know or have talked to wish the team had never spent $100 million on that guy.
I’d say the 2010 season felt like the real him to me, except he didn’t allow as many HR’s. He’s okay, but nowhere near worth $100 million dollars, that’s elite pitcher money. And you can say the bid doesn’t count, but it does.
From what I’ve heard, it’s not going to cost elite player money to get Nishioka, but he’s still likely to get more than he’ll end up being worth…which is risky enough even if he does turn out to be good in the majors.
I defend Dice-K all the time. He should be well worth what the Sox are paying him and is a solid mid-to-back of the rotation guy and he is being paid accordingly. The other 50mil that went to the Lions is obviously not going to be made up but he is earning what he is owed according to WAR.
You can’t ignore the posting fee just because it’s not being paid to him though. At least I don’t think so. The Sox paid more money to get him than most pitchers are getting paid in the majors. The closest would be Zambrano, there are a few who are more expensive, but most pitchers cost less than Dice-K.
That is way too much for a player like him. You even say HE is getting paid what he’s worth, which I agree with, but there’s also that other 50 million dollars to account for. And he’s not worth that, even if he doesn’t get a dime of that other 50. That’s what makes him a bust in my eyes. He’s not a 100 million dollar pitcher. Not even close.
They also gave him a full no trade clause which was really dumb with such an unknown. They were negotiating with Scott Boras, that alone says enough. If the Sox paid 50 million dollars for him total then there would be no argument from me about his pay, but they didn’t.
I’m thinking the exact same! And yes, Go Twins!!!
oops didn’t mean to capitalize all of the letters in Minneapolis.
It sounds like this guy isn’t even going to cost that much.
I’m surprised more teams don’t want to get in on the bidding.
I think there are a lot of team in on this, but they probably put in a bid that was fairly low. This is a fairly high risk / minimal reward for teams when bringing in positional guys. I think the perfect example is Fukudome. He was great in Japan and is average in the US. Teams are already looking at what good 2B in the game make and will likely offer a 4 year average salary contract to this guy. I will not be surprised if the high bid is 5 million dollars. If that is the case, I think there are going to be a lot of teams in on this guy. Padres, Giants, Reds, Cardinals, Orioles, Mets, Twins, Mariners, Indians, Royals, Dodgers, Pirates…….
This wouldn’t be a lot for any team to pay. $5 Million dollar Posting Fee, 4 year $16 million dollar deal? That could end up being a great deal for a middle infielder that can hit for average, play solid defense, get on base and score you runs. If he ends up being a starting SS, then that becomes even a greater deal.
I think there are a lot of team in on this, but they probably put in a bid that was fairly low. This is a fairly high risk / minimal reward for teams when bringing in positional guys. I think the perfect example is Fukudome. He was great in Japan and is average in the US. Teams are already looking at what good 2B in the game make and will likely offer a 4 year average salary contract to this guy. I will not be surprised if the high bid is 5 million dollars. If that is the case, I think there are going to be a lot of teams in on this guy. Padres, Giants, Reds, Cardinals, Orioles, Mets, Twins, Mariners, Indians, Royals, Dodgers, Pirates…….
This wouldn’t be a lot for any team to pay. $5 Million dollar Posting Fee, 4 year $16 million dollar deal? That could end up being a great deal for a middle infielder that can hit for average, play solid defense, get on base and score you runs. If he ends up being a starting SS, then that becomes even a greater deal.
Excuse me but, this posting system is idiotic. I understand that it’s just the system that has come about organically to mitigate concerns Japanese teams might have in allowing their assets to leave their franchise, but there’s too many possible loopholes that I think we’ll start to see get abused.For instance, what if a legit highly regarded pitcher, potentially capable of tipping a balance of power in a division, became available? If a team is thought to be bidding on that player, their competitive rival can bid themselves just to block their competition from acquiring that player. Once they win the right to negotiate, they could in actuality have no intention of completing a contract, and allow the 30-day negotiation window to expire after creating the semblance of talking. From their perspective, they’ve already won because they’ve already blocked their rival from improving, and in the end, they would have done so without paying a cent.
It’s definitely a flawed system, but technically the posting team doesn’t have to accept the highest bid. If they do their homework on knowing which team really wants to negotiate, they can eliminate most of that problem.
Um, Oakland?
It’s not like the posting system is new, and I really don’t think baseball execs are idiots (at least most of the time). I’d be willing to guess that essentially every team in baseball has already realized how to screw everyone else, and well it really hasn’t been a problem yet.
Actually the posting system as it is right now started in 1998, which I consider somewhat new. Or, at least, the frequency of Japanese players coming to the majorleagues has only gotten really started since Ichiro and Matsui have established themselves in the last decade.
So what?
You stop a rival from acquiring a player in December, big deal, they’ll just repost him in a month.
If the team that wins the bid does not sign the player, then the ball club in Japan does not get the posting fee. The team in Japan is doing this 100% for the cash. They do their homework too. They need to get that player to sign, or else they could have a lot of trouble on their hands. Disgruntled fans, players and no extra cash to show for it.
It’s not that the Japanese team actually necessarily needs cash. These teams, depending on who we’re talking about, are generally not cash-strapped teams. Japan is the 3rd largest economy in the world. It’s just that they want to avoid the possibility of their best players leaving their team as Free Agents for the majors without any compensation at all, like, for example Alfonso Soriano and Hideo Nomo did. So it’s similar to the way some teams here consider trading quality players right before they hit free agency.
If the team in Japan feels the highest bidding team has no intention of signing the player, they do not have to accept the bid. You can bet that the bid they do accept will be from a team they expect to sign the player.
At most you’d slow a rival team down by a month, then the player would be reposted, and the team that attempted the block would probably earn itself a nice amount of bad reputation amongst both the NBL players and agents as well as their MLB counterparts.
So, you stop a rival club from acquiring a player for about 1 months time during the off season and alienate your franchise in the eyes of countless players and agents.
Essentially the OP’s issue isn’t an issue because it hurts the club trying the block WAY, WAY, WAY more than it hurts the rival.
The NPB team holds all the cards, a player can request to be posted, but it doesn’t mean the team has to honor the request, I see no reason why a NPB club couldn’t post a player multiple times during one posting season if a deal could not be reached by the first highest bidder.
dodgers shouldve gotten in on this… oh wait…. he’s a ryan theriot-like type… dont we have a guy like that?
Still wouldn’t be shocked now to see Boston submit some kind of a bid after reading the Scuttaro rumors. Lowrie to 3B, Nishioka the SS and Iglesias next year with Nishioka moved fairly easy if he is a success, or salary eaily eaten link Lugo and Renteria if not.
Epstein loves taking chances on Japanese players, Tazawa, Okajima, Matsuzaka and several Taiwanese players also in the system, they scout well the Asian markets.
As a Twins fan, I’ll be stoked if we get him!! I’ve seen video of him and he looks like he’s gonna be a stud here in the U.S.! I hope we’ll get him.
I personally hope Theo stays away from this guy. I don’t think he will be anything special and will be overpaid.
Still wouldn’t be shocked now to see Boston submit some kind of a bid after reading the Scuttaro rumors. Lowrie to 3B, Nishioka the SS and Iglesias next year with Nishioka moved fairly easy if he is a success, or salary eaily eaten link Lugo and Renteria if not.
Epstein loves taking chances on Japanese players, Tazawa, Okajima, Matsuzaka and several Taiwanese players also in the system, they scout well the Asian markets.