Or, Masahiro Tanaka might not sign with anybody at all
Masahiro Tanaka's Japanese team may not even make him available to interested MLB clubs.
Greatly sought 25-year-old Japanese prospect Masahiro Tanaka has long had the eye of Major League Baseball, to the point that a new international posting system is in the midst of being finalized.
Should things fall into place, MLB teams would have to pay a measly $20 million to negotiate with Tanaka over the course of a month, with the final decision of which team to select resting on Tanaka.
It's an affordable enough price that a lot of teams, even those without tremendous interest, might be willing to deal.
Starting pitching is a valuable commodity, and Tanaka's numbers in Nippon Professional Baseball are hard to ignore (24-0 with a 1.74 ERA in 2013), though obviously you would factor in his adjustment to MLB.
However, with all this commotion, the Japanese team for which he currently plays, the Rakuten Golden Eagles, may not even want to let him switch hemispheres.
Twenty million dollars isn't too much in exchange for a pitcher who didn't lose a game for them for a year, and should they hang onto him, Tanaka won't be available again until 2015.