[Nightengale] Remember when Tatsuya Imai and Munetaka Murakami were projected to earn in excess of $300 million in free agency? Well, the duo combined for just $88 million with Imai getting 3-year, $54M from Astros and Murakami 2 years, $34 million from White Sox in surprising low deals.

18 comments

  2. This just feels like a course correction relative to their hype. Like tsutugo and Senga got similar deals in AAV, if not term and I think if teams were more confident in their NPB data there would be more of a market.

  4. Did those projected contracts come from front offices or agents and bored beat writers?

  5. All I know is their NPB teams must be pissed. The benefit of posting your best players is a fat wad of cash and they’re not getting anything close to what they expected.

  6. My takeaway is that any Japanese player that the Dodgers don’t want must suck and the other teams know it and won’t be fooled into offering large contracts

  9. The teams figured out that the posting deadline means they can wait until the last second to give them lower offers. Having that deadline only benefits the owners

  10. There’s definitely 2 factors

    1. The lockout that’s coming

    2. The hype not matching how teams felt

  13. Think everyone keeps saying contracts and salaries are ballooning but it’s not really true. The Soto and Ohtani contracts fooled people and are exceptions not the rule. Tucker may be finding out the hard way.

    To me, Imai was much more like Senga or Imanaga than Yamamoto so it makes sense why he wasn’t given $100 million. Okomoto and Murakami are much closer to Yoshida than a superstar

  14. A lot of the players coming over are good not great and good doesn’t get you $300M.

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