Astros Major Press Conference at 4:30 (UPDATE: Astros trade 3 for Jason Jennings)

excellent point. i hadn't considered that.

 

Doesn't he get some of the "bid" money that was originally given for the rights to negotiate?

In the end, the Red Sox invest 6 years 100+ million in a pitcher who's never pitched in the majors before... I gotta think that the only reason his contract was around 50 million was because of the initial bid price.

 

No, unless he has some agreement with Seibu, the whole posting fee goes to Japan.

The posting fee will be recouped by TV, ad & merch rights in Japan. Read in the Boston paper that that's why they wanted a longer-term deal, to give them the opportunity to recover the posting fee.

Boras's crown jewel just signed for less money than Gil Meche. He had no, nada, zero, zip leverage, hence the Sox's "take it or leave it, we're going back to Boston" final offer...which he promptly accepted.

 

Well, there's Zito. Just watch how differently *those* negotiations go.

 

But he helped negotiate it... the guy has to get some sort of commision on that, otherwise why would he even bother?

 

It's not a negotiation. There is a contractual agreement b/t Major League Baseball and the Japanese baseball league as to how Japanese players are offered to MLB clubs. It's a blind bid process, and the agent has no role in it.

As I understand it. I hadn't heard anywhere that the agent got a cut of the posting fee. Could be wrong.

 

I guess I'm just skeptical as to how "blind" these processes really are... teams have to have had feelers out there on what it was going to take to "win" the bid. I wouldn't be suprised if Boras' people were involved in engineering that (since that is truly what they're so damn good at).