TORONTO – A year ago when Yoshinobu Yamamoto came over from Japan, the frenzied bidding for the right-hander led to a $325 million, 12-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
No matter which team Roki Sasaki signs with – the Toronto Blue Jays are finalists along with the long-favoured Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres – he’ll earn a small fraction of that, simply because he’s subject to international singing bonus pool provisions, and Yamamoto was not.
To explain why, here’s a look at the international signing rules (which are part of the collective bargaining agreement), how they work, and how they’ll impact the next steps for Sasaki and his finalists:
What’s an international signing bonus pool?
International signing bonus pools are assigned to each club annually to cap spending on eligible players outside North America. Under current rules, a new signing period opens every Jan. 15 and runs until the following Dec. 15, giving teams 11 months to identify and sign players. Baseball employs a similar signing bonus pool system for its annual draft. Although, the international system is a hard cap, while in the draft, clubs can exceed their pool if they’re willing to pay penalties that begin with overage taxes but extend to lost picks. Bonuses of $10,000 or less do not count against a team’s pool.
Which players are eligible?
International players must be at least 16 before they sign and turn 17 by September of the next year to be eligible, and they must be registered with MLB by the preceding Nov. 1. Players who are at least 25 and have played in a recognized foreign league for a minimum of six seasons are exempt. Since Sasaki is 23, he counts against the bonus pool and will work through baseball’s entry-level pay structure like any other rookie. Yamamoto was 25 when he signed, so he did not.
How much can teams spend on Sasaki?
International bonus pools are assigned in three tiers based on clubs’ pre-determined revenue and market-size classification. Unlike the draft, the previous season’s standings have no bearing here, which gives every team a chance to sign the very best talent each period. This year, the largest pool is $7,555,500, the middle pool is $6,908,600 and the smallest is $6,261,600. The Blue Jays, Padres and Dodgers fall into the latter group. However, there are four teams – the Dodgers, Giants, Astros and Cardinals – with smaller allotments because of penalties for signing qualified free agents. Teams that sign a free agent who rejected a qualifying offer the previous off-season are docked $500,000 (Houston and St. Louis signed one apiece, San Francisco two) while a team that both lands a qualified free agent and exceeds the Competitive Balance Tax, like Los Angeles, are docked $1 million.
What happens if a team doesn’t use its entire pool?
Bonus pools expire at the end of each signing period, so teams must use it or lose it. However, they can also trade spending room, either in increments of $250,000 or the entirety of their remaining pool space. A caveat is that no team can acquire more than 60 per cent of its total bonus pool, so in the Blue Jays’ case, the maximum they can trade for is $3,756,960.
So the maximum bonus Sasaki can get is roughly $10 million?
In theory, yes, but while trades for bonus pool space happen every year, these slots are a valuable commodity, and the Sasaki dynamic adds some interesting wrinkles. First, since clubs often reach handshake agreements with prospects well in advance of Jan. 15, major portions of various pools are already committed. Second, teams are reluctant to trade slots at the beginning of a period because a player they like could emerge during the year, and they may want to keep some flexibility for such scenarios. Third, given the above plus the stakes around Sasaki, it’s reasonable to expect teams to seek a premium for pool space in trade talks. Side note – there are rules in the CBA to prevent teams from circumventing bonus pool limits with an extension or other promises to a player. The commissioner’s office can investigate and can penalize violations with fines, suspensions and loss of future signing rights.
Do the Blue Jays already have some handshake deals with other prospects and what happens to them if they get Sasaki?
They do, according to Baseball America’s Ben Badler, who links the Blue Jays to a pair of Dominican shortstops, Cristopher Polanco in the $2 million range and Juan Sanchez around $1 million, among other players. The Sasaki finalists could certainly walk away from those deals, but they also surely have planned for this, as seemingly has Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe. With word filtering out Monday that the process was down to three teams, it provided clarity for 27 clubs and the vast majority of players with commitments in place. Those prospects suddenly on tenuous ground can begin exploring potential options, as can teams with money to spend. And clubs seeking to capitalize on the opportunity to move pool room now know whom to focus their conversations on, too.
Will it come down to which team is able to acquire the most bonus pool room then?
No. If this was about money, he would have waited until he was 25 to come over. As Wolfe, his agent, said in December during the winter meetings, Sasaki recognizes that “there are no absolutes in life” and “he does not take anything for granted.” Instead, it’s all the other elements that will decide how this plays out. The Dodgers, with Ohtani and Yamamoto, and Padres, with Darvish, who is tight with Sasaki, have some inherent advantages, so that the Blue Jays are in play demonstrates that they are offering more of what he’s seeking than most. And since the difference in how much money the remaining clubs can offer will be negligible, no one’s getting leveraged here. All of which is why Sasaki’s deal, whenever it comes, will be among the most unique international signings the game has seen.
