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Question about NPB rights

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Question about NPB rights
If a player that is posted to a major league team came back to play in Japan, would the player rights be owned by the team that posted him or would he be free to sign with any NPB team? I know when Komiyama went to the Mets and then came back to Japan, the BayStars prevented him from signing with any other team.
Comments
Re: Question about NPB rights
[ Author: westbaystars | Posted: May 15, 2005 11:34 PM | YBS Fan ]

This looks like a follow-up to this thread, which unfortunately didn't get a reply.

Unfortunately, I don't have the answer. I don't recall reading any details about the Posting System in the Baseball Agreement. I'm not sure where the NPB/MLB agreements are. Does anyone know if the agreements are available in English on the MLB.com site? Copies of such agreements, especially the agreement that setup the Posting System, would help a great deal to answer a lot of these types of questions. I assume that there are English versions of these, since MLB agreed to them.
Re: Question about NPB rights
[ Author: Guest: Jun | Posted: May 18, 2005 11:35 PM ]

Komiyama was a free agent when he signed with the Mets, so he didn't go through the Posting System. According to the Baseball Agreement, if a FA player moves to another NPB team, the former team can get compensation from the new team. The compensation is 1.2 times as much as his last salary (or one player and 0.8 times as much as his last salary). However, if a FA player hasn't signed with any NPB team for two years, any team doesn't need to compensate to get him.

When Komiyama came back to Japan, he was basically free to sign with any NPB team, but the BayStars still had the right to get the compensation if he would have signed with another NPB team. I don't know how much the last salary the BayStars paid to him was, but obviously the other teams thought it would cost too high.

As you know, the BayStars also didn't want to sign with him, so he didn't play in 2003. The Marines signed with him after the BayStars' right had been lapsed.

I think the same thing may happen if Norihiro Nakamura wants to come back to Japan before November 30 in 2006. His last salary was so expensive that it is difficult for him to sign with any NPB team except Orix. But I suppose one of the reasons why he left Japan is that he has such a strong attachment to Kintetsu that he doesn't want to play for Orix, so it seems to me that he will not come back to NPB before the date, even if he struggles badly in MLB.

You may remember that the Fighters didn't pay for the compensation to the Tigers when the Fighters signed Shinjo. He was also a FA player when he decided to go to New York. He played in MLB more than two years, so the Tigers' right had lapsed when he came back.

On the other hand, if a player who went to MLB through the Posting System and comes back to NPB, the team doesn't need to pay for the compensation, whenever he comes back.

Westbaystars-san, you can find the US-Japan Player Contract Agreements here, with the 2001 version in English here (PDF file).
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