JPBPA to Back Iwakuma

Okada-kantoku has been saying that he would be interested in signing Iwakuma as well.

This is an interesting opinion on Iwakuma's situation by Yomiuri's Jim Allen here [Daily Yomiuri].

It's a well argued piece that I find myself completely in agreement with. I am hoping that Iwakuma gets his wish to play wherever he wants.

Surely that's too radical a change to hope for anytime soon. Still, while change has been glacially slow, it happens: free agency, use of agents in contract negotiations, a say in this year's merger debacle, etc. So, who knows? Maybe we'll tell our baseball-fan grandchildren, "Back in my day, lad, baseball players had to play where they were jolly-well told. There was none of this new-fangled 'freedom of employment' back then."

That would be right before we tell them we don't understand their music, that they should get a haircut and a real job, and that we used to walk 3 hours to school in the snow without shoes, and...

Well Jim makes some interseting points, but he doesn't really address the issue of a possible alternative to the present setup. Having savaged the current system using his usual racy language, I think he should at least make some positive suggestions as to what to replace it with.

Is he suggesting more liberal free agency rules? Or truly enforcing the existing rules, and making the signing process more transparent? Or is he suggesting a free-for-all in which the richest clubs end up signing most of the young talent?

The system is undoubtedly unjust for many players, but are there any alternatives that might work better? Most professional sports leagues around the world have some sort of regulated draft procedure. And those that don't find themselves wishing they did.

His "usual racy language" is right! When he wrote:

An apologist might say the draft system is excusable because professional athletes make so much money, or that such rules are essential for balance among teams.

Bells and whistles were ringing for me. The first excuse was just a distraction to present two issues in hopes that he could hook the reader into thinking he's being semi-reasonable. He wanted to attack the idea that the draft was a fair system, and anyone who thought so must be an "apologist" (although it's not clear for whom).

While I agree with Allen-san's arguements thereafter about how unfair the whole system is against players' freedoms, I don't see how the problem is with the draft. The problem is with extended periods of indentured service to a club with little to no say about getting traded before the end of approximately nine years. He never convinces me that the draft is the problem, yet there's the straw man standing there, waiting to be knocked down.

I, too, was left at the end of the article wondering if Jim hasn't become a Watanabe apologist. If the draft is done away with, then there's nothing stopping the Giants from buying any and all players they want. It may not be a perfect system, but it's a good sized road block keeping some distribution of talent possible.

What I think is going on is that Rakuten and the Players Association (since long before) are trying to get the draft to be a straight waiver system, doing away with drawings in the first two rounds and the jiyu waku (formerly known as gyaku-shimei or "reverse designation) system where college and/or Industrial League players may choose where they want to play - up to two per team. To counter that, the Yomiuri Group is putting out a media blitz to counter such ideas before they become an issue. Kind of like how GW Bush planted the idea that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 (contrary to all evidence) in order to get backing for an attack. By having a preemptive strike on the media to make such a straight waiver system look unfair, Nabetsune (yes, I still think he's running things) is hoping to block any such reform.

Jim's been very atune to what's going on behind the scenes with the Yomiuri Group in the past, especially with the whole merger thing. It's good to keep an eye on what he says. And in between the loaded words and straw man offenses, there's a great deal of possible interpretation of his writing.

[Fixed beginning of post (strange characters crept in) on Nov 26, 2004 8:36 AM JST]

Right now in the NPB there's a problem with the draft and the competitive balance of the teams. Also there is no easy solution that won't end up sooner or later helping Yomiuri. Yomiuri always gets what they want. They got Tuffy Rhodes and then got Hiroki Kobuko for nothing.

The point still remains, Iwakuma shouldn't play for a team he had no interest in playing for. No one else in the economic world is held to the their job if two companies merge. Also, there is the fact that Orix said they would also try to accomodate anyone who didn't want to play for the new merged team. The fact remains that this didn't happen, and Iwakuma is most likely left playing for the Orix Buffaloes next year against his will.

Whilst Yomiuri holds the power, any change in the system is going to favour them. The need is to break this power. There are signs that this might happen with the introduction of new teams and ideas and the blocking of the one league system. However, Yomiuri need to be stripped of their television rights (though I cannot see this happening). I am almost tempted to suggest a salary cap (though this has enormous disadvantages) as it would stop the Giants' abuse of their resources.

I still think that Jim's comments are valid, even though he doesn't suggest solutions. What I have noticed about the Yomiuri management is that currently they don't think through the consequences of their decisions, and as a result, have gotten seriously burned by the results. I have a suspicion that the draft issue could turn out to be another one of these cases.

Thank you Brooks-san for pointing out the undisputed facts of the article. I should have done that to make sure that I wasn't mis-understood as thinking that the current system was fair to Iwakuma, or any ball player for that matter. Or that the draft does accomplish the goal of providing competitive balance, which it doesn't.

That's the insidiousness of articles like the one Jim wrote: that I agree with all of the examples and evidence that he gave, but disagree with his contention that the draft is the root of the problem.

Players need freedom to market themselves, true. And there needs to be something in place to distribute talent to teams fairly. The problem with running a monopoly (which NPB is, like MLB) is how to regulate it in such a way that it creates the maximum "social good" while properly compensating those who have to do the work that wouldn't otherwise be done if a monopoly wasn't granted. [See this Financial Times article on IP monopolies and why they don't work. Down with software patents!] I fail to see how dismantaling the draft system (which Jim was attacking via proxy) will create a greater social good in NPB.

Anyway, Orix should not have kept Iwakuma after he asked them not to put him on the protected list. And their trying to convince him to stay by sending Ohgi-kantoku to meet with him no less than three times over the last couple of weeks is seriously damaging their image. So far for Orix, the entire forcing the merger through has done nothing but produce negative publicity for them.

Westbay-san, perhaps you may be mistaken in consiering the NPB as a monopoly. The NPB does not have the power to act as a monopoly. It is not the organisation that decides to admit or exclude new teams for example. This is the perogative of the owners. Likewise, the NPB had no influence on the merger issue. Compensation is decided between teams and players, not with the NPB. The toothlessness of the NPB is why the draft has become a problem. With a properly run system, then maybe the draft would be a good way of ensuring fairness, but only for a short period. No player should be required to sign for more than say two years to any team.

However, it would be the NPB who administered the draft without pre-draft choices by the teams or interference from the teams. If the current system was dismantled, it would expose the reality of the selection process.

The NPB's key issues are (1) Yomiuri acts as though it isn't bound by the rules applicable to other teams, and nobody makes them behave by the rules, to say nothing of their being far too powerful; (2) there is a revenue and competitive imbalance; and (3) there is a threat posed by competition from MLB.

Perhaps the second would be easiest to resolve by taking a sizeable percentage of every team's revenues (50% would be best, but a lesser percentage to start would do) and create a fund everybody shares in, but with significant incentives (i.e. a larger share) for winning as well as requirements of a minimum level of player salaries. If they did that one, it would be hard to rig for Yomiuri, and might help in the effort to reduce Yomiuri's undue influence.

A key difference between Yomiuri and the New York Yankees is that, while the Yankees may not like the rules and have outsized economic power, they still are held to the rules that apply to all teams. The Yankees can and do lobby to keep the rules as favorable as possible, but they know they couldn't hope to be as successful by leaving MLB with a few teams they might be able to persuade to join them as they are within MLB. Yomiuri feels, with ample justification, that they can leave NPB if they wish, and probably persuade at least three teams to join them and ultimately win the fight against the teams left behind. Therefore, they feel no compulsion to have rules which seriously inhibit them in what they want to do. So long as this state of affairs exists, NPB will have a glaring imbalance and consequent weakness inherent in its structure.

Finally, MLB may not seem a huge problem at present, but if the weaknesses within NPB become larger, MLB will be a more significant problem as it competes for scarce resources, namely talented players. Additionally, if NPB were to completely loosen the reins on its players, MLB would not take long to swoop in and take much of the talent it deems worth taking.

I don't know how to resolve the second and third issues, though broadening the reach of NPB to some alliance/cooperation with other Asian leagues would help. Also, lifting the restriction on the number of foreign players and replacing it with a cap on the amount of salary which could be spent on such players would be positive. Hopefully this last step would encourage development of young players from many places (the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, etc.). Further efforts to develop talent inside and outside of Japan shouldn't hurt NPB's position - and revenue sharing would help fund such player development. A cap on spending on foreign players means developing a lot of young cheap foreign stars would be another way to compete, while limiting the checkbook power of clubs like the Giants.

I wouldn't favor a salary cap for Japanese players, as it might unwittingly cause problems for NPB teams to retain home grown stars rather than lose them to MLB.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what specifics I'd suggest, but any measures taken should try to have a positive effect in at least one of the three key areas, and a minimal or no net negative effects in the others.

I can't see how doing away with the draft would do more good than harm in any of the three key areas of concern I've listed - and likely would create significant additional problems in the first two areas. A straight waiver draft, without the ability to choose to play for the Giants or any other team, would be an improvement IMO. A player's time until his release from his NPB service would start either when he was first drafted by a NPB team or, if he was not drafted, when he first signed a contract with an NPB team. A team would hold a player's rights for one year, like in the majors, and if they failed to sign him in that time, he would be eligible to be drafted again. That way, a player would have some say in where he worked as has proven to be the case in the majors. The Giants would still surely try to manipulate the system to their advantage, but it would be harder to achieve than it is presently.

Jim Albright

[First paragraph fixed on Nov 26, 2004 11:26 PM, JST]

I'm not understanding something here. Why would Orix let go of Iwakuma? They hold his rights don't they? Just as the new DC team holds the rights to Jose Vidro. If Vidro said he didn't want to play in DC now that the team has different ownership and is in a new city, does anyone think that Washington would just let him go without getting something in return?

I agree that the NPB draft system is a total joke, and that the amount of time a player is held hostage before becoming a free agent is way too long. But isn't he under contract? If I was them, I wouldn't just leave him unprotected or let him sign with someone else without getting a something substantial in return.

If Orix agrees to just let him go, I would say they are fools. I beleive the majority of sports franchises around the world, and not just baseball, participate in a draft system (albeit nothing as stupid NPB's), and players can either sign or not sign. That's it. I don't get it!

- Why would Orix let go of Iwakuma? They hold his rights don't they? Just as the new DC team holds the rights to Jose Vidro. If Vidro said he didn't want to play in DC now that the team has different ownership and is in a new city, does anyone think that Washington would just let him go without getting something in return?

Orix hasn't let Iwakuma go as they put him on the protected players list. Though the point is Iwakuma didn't ask to play for the merged Orix-Kintestu team, and even after ownership said they would accomodate anyone who didn't want to play with the new team. The point remains the Expos moved to Washington, they didn't merge, so they didn't have to go through the same thing.

Though, in conclusion Iwakuma shouldn't have to play for a team he had no interest in playing for, you don't have to work for your company if they merge and neither should Iwakuma if he has no interest in playing for the new merged team.

I understand that Washington didn't merge, but I could think of no other comparable situation. I must admit that if Orix stated that they would accomodate anyone who did not want to play for the new Orix/Kintetsu team, then they should have honored that. But why do you think Iwakuma shouldn't have to play for a team he has no interest playing for? There are many players who would rather play for a different team.

Should it then be a rule that a player can change teams whenever they wish? Sports organizations do not work that way. Sports are not like regular businesses where you can quit and be hired by another company when you wish. It is entertainment, and there are rules to keep a level playing field. These rules are in the best interest of fair competition.

What would you be saying if Iwakuma said he wanted to play for the Giants instead? Take a moment and really think about it. Would everyone be rushing to his defense? I doubt it. Speaking as a former player in both NPB and MLB (although not a real good one), my opinion is if a player signs a contract, he should honor it.

Again, I should reiterate. If Orix did say that they would accomdate him, they should stand by their word.