Official: Lambin and Burnham to Lotte
Lotte has announced the acquisition of infielders Gary Burnham and Chase Lambin. We’ve know Burnham was Lotte-bound for a while, but this is the first official note I’ve seen on former Marlins AAA’er Lambin. These are budget signings for Lotte — Burnham will make 13m yen and Lambin will earn 20m yen. I’ll let you do the dollar conversion yourself, but the strong yen favors these guys. Good luck Chase & Gary in ’09!
18/01/2009 at 2:16 am Permalink
Hmm. My understanding is that most foreign players sign for a fixed US$ salary, but that it’s often reported in the Japanese press (and player meikan) as an approximate yen equivalent – rounded to 1 or 2 significant digits. It’s when the dollar surges during the season that many Japanese teams start worrying about foreign player budgets going over.
18/01/2009 at 8:34 am Permalink
Yeah, I think you’re right about that, but still 20m yen looks a lot better in dollars now than a year or two ago. I believe some of the contracts have fixed conversion rates as well (ie, $500k paid at 105 yen/dollar), to protect both sides from the situation you described above.