Average Salaries?

Salaries was the main topic of Shukan Baseball's issue from a couple of weeks ago. I'll post the details after work tonight.

All salaries I post will be in units of 1-man (10,000) yen. You can do the conversions to which ever American currency (Canadian dollars, U.S. dollars, pesos, etc.) you like.

The following information comes from Issue #4 of the 2006 volume of Shukan Baseball. Note that the data is as of the beginning of January, so they do not include some of the more recent signings, such as Matsunaka's 5-oku yen deal or a couple of Chiba Lotte Marine 1-oku yen deals.

Before getting started, a quick primer on units of salary is in order. The basic unit used to define salaries in in 1-man (10,000) yen units. Normal people (like me) have salaries in the hundreds of man yen. Regulars and exceptional rookies make in the thousands of man yen. And the top players make in the ten-thousands of man yen. Because 10,000-man would be 1-man man, this digit has its own name, oku. In English units go up every three digits (thousands, millions, billions, etc.), in Japanese, it's every four digits (man, oku, chou, etc.). Simple.

Now let's look at historical averages over the years (foreigners excluded).

    Year   All   1-gun  2-gun [in units of 1-man (10,000) yen]
    1981    658  1,036    341
    1982    727  1,175    360
    1983    814  1,320    392
    1984    907  1,526    406
    1985    979  1,569    468
    1986  1,047  1,718    480
    1987  1,106  1,806    530
    1988  1,246  1,974    629
    1989  1,246  2,071    716
    1990  1,526  2,370    809
    1991  1,688  2,729    806
    1992  1,759  3,141    857
    1993  1,963  3,327  1,042
    1994  2,355  4,220  1,130
    1995  2,700  4,970  1,229
    1996  2,787  4,737  1,484
    1997  2,908  5,024  1,476
    1998  3,060  5,278  1,594
    1999  3,218  5,654  1,564
    2000  3,284  5,706  1,667
    2001  3,389  7,721  1,883
    2002  3,455  6,295  1,641
    2003  3,512  6,055  1,940
    2004  3,806  6,954  1,835
    2005  3,743  6,770  1,832
    2006* 3,396  -----  -----

    * As of the beginning of January, 2006.

That's a big drop in average salary for two years in a row. Last year's drop was due to the merger of Orix and Kintetsu combined with the new Rakuten ball club getting players at a greatly reduced rate. The big salary drop this year appears to be due to the Giants, Dragons, BayStars, Hawks, Fighters, and Buffaloes. The Tigers, Swallows, and Marines didn't make up for that with their increased spending. Of course, any time the average salary for the Giants drops, it's going to lower the overall average as they're at the high end of the scale. (Also noted above, several high priced players hadn't signed at the time of the article - so the 2006 figure should increase with the more recent signings.)

Of note, the 47 foreign players signed at the time of the article average 5,368-man yen. Seibu's Alex Cabrera tops all players, Japanese and foreigners, with 6-oku yen in 2006, just over 10 times the foreign average.