Quote:
Originally Posted by Otsy
The whole international system is not good. Why should a team have to pay a Japanese team 50 million dollars to negotiate. If the player wants to leave Japan then so be it. Maybe he should play out his contract and then go, but still shouldn't have to fork over that much.
Also the International signing period sucks having to give teenagers like Miguel Sano (16 years old) from the twins over 3 million signing bonus because they're not eligible for the draft.
Entirely way too much money is spent in baseball and it hurts teams because obviously they won't all pan out and it's just a waste.
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Darvish is perfectly capable of playing out his contract in Japan and then coming over. I think the main issue is that contract lengths are very long in Japan so players don't typically hit free agency very often and when they do it might be too late to draw interest.
The international signing period does have it's advantages though. Without those huge signing bonuses the majority of these kids never pick up a baseball bat. Look at Puerto Rico - after the MLB changed it so they were eligible for the draft the amount of quality major leaguers went way, way down. Guys starts playing soccer and volleyball instead and followed the money. The problem is that it's so difficult to make the MLB and the vast majority of guys don't even get a sniff at the high minors. Without those huge signing bonuses it's just not worth the risk for guys from impoverished countries to try and ultimately the MLB ends up losing out on potential stars.