NPB Tracker

So I’ve already tweeted, the bidding portion of Hisashi Iwakuma’s posting process has come to a conclusion. All that’s been reported so far is that more than one team submitted a bid, but the rumor is that the Mariners put in $13m.

Rakuten has until the 11th to decide whether or not to accept the bid, but I doubt it will take them that long to announce their decision. My guess is that they had already decided how much they are willing to accept, and will make an announcement within a day or two of the Japan Series ending. Early on in this process Rakuten had suggested they wouldn’t accept a bid that was too low. Nikkan Sports had speculated that Rakuten would want 1.5bn yen, which I mistakenly tweeted as Rakuten hoping for $16-17m. Lazy Twitter reporting at its finest; this was Nikkan Sports’ own speculation, and 1.5bn yen is actually about $18.5m at today’s rate.

I’ve been following Ken Rosenthal’s updates on Iwakuma, and he has the Mariners, Rangers and A’s in on the bidding.Seattle’s involvement has been widely reported, and the Rangers’ bid comes as no surprise to me. Texas employs Pacific scout Jim Colborn, and has been in on most of the big pitchers to come out of Japan, including Daisuke Matsuzaka, Junichi Tazawa, and Yusei Kikuchi (though Kikuchi ultimately stayed home). Oakland makes sense as they have Ben Sheets and Eric Chavez coming off the books, and Iwakuma would do well in the Colliseum. And although this isn’t exactly corroborated information, I’ll add that Iwakuma’s agent Don Nomura tweeted that he dreamed that the Diamondbacks on November 4th.

For everything else on Iwakuma, I’ll refer back to my FanGraphs post on him from last month.