MLB And NPB Officially Announce New Posting Rules

The details have slowly been coming out on the new posting system over the past few weeks, but Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball made it official today with the announcement that an agreement has been reached and the new posting system will go into effect today and for the next 3 years.  The major details of the new posting system are:

• $20 million maximum bid limit, paid only if a team submitting it agrees to a deal with the player being posted.
• Negotiating rights for any MLB team who pays the maximum $20 million posting fee.
• 30-day window after the player is posted for all MLB teams to agree to submit the posting fee set by the NPB team and negotiate a new contract with the posted player.
• Fee payment for the winning MLB team to come in installments set by the NPB team.  NPB team has the right to set the posting fee for any player at any level they want up to the $20 million cap.

There's good and bad in this system for the Yankees, which doesn't detract from the fact that it was a complete screwjob to the Yankees by the have-nots in MLB.  It also won't mean much for them this offseason if the Rakuten Golden Eagles decide not to post Masahiro Tanaka.  He's their only real target for the rotation in this year's free agent class, and I highly doubt the team would be happy using a Phelps or a Warren in the rotation in place of Tanaka.  His club has all the power right now, and the last I read they were leaning towards not posting him and trying to convince him to stay for 1 more year.  If that happens, this new system won't mean much to the Yankees until the 2014 offseason.