No Bids for Mitsui
The posting term for Koji Mitsui has come and gone without a single bidder for his services. I’m not too surprised by this; Mitsui is 35, coming off a bad year, and wanted a major league contract. Might as well sign Mark Hendrickson, who wouldn’t cost a posting fee.Â
If Seibu wants to accomodate Mitsui at this point, they might choose to release Mitsui to allow him to pursue and MLB deal. He might have a better shot after some of the more proven guys sign. Nippon Ham was in a similiar situation with Yusaku Iriki a few years ago. The Fighters released Iriki after he failed to draw any bids during the posting process. Iriki went on to sign with the Mets, get busted for PED usage in the minor leagues, and eventually make his way back to Japan for one season before retiring.
24/12/2008 at 4:48 am Permalink
One MLB team executive gave me an ear full about Seibu’s incompetence in this posting. He basically said that if a team in Japan is going to post somebody at the end of the season, that they should leave some sort of clue to the MLB teams during the regular season so that they can at least see him live. Without seeing him pitch live at a regular season game at least once, even stellar stats would not convince them to make a bid. In short, this isn’t the way to post a player.
24/12/2008 at 8:35 am Permalink
Mitsui asked to be posted himself, I guess he should’ve done the asking during the season (in secret?) to somehow keep both the Seibu brass happy and MLB scouts informed.
24/12/2008 at 11:10 am Permalink
This is a good point. The posting process doesn’t allow for guys to work out for teams before or during the bidding period. A guy like Yukinaga Maeda signed with Texas after putting up similarly bad numbers, but he threw for 10 teams in at least one work out.