Amateur Pitcher Causing Rift Between MLB, Nippon League Execs
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Manfred Expects Further Conversations
With Japanese Baseball Officials |
Amateur Japanese P Junichi Tazawa has "found himself straining relations between" MLB and the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) league amid "accusations of talent raiding and defiance of decades-long understandings," according to Schwarz & Lefton of the N.Y. TIMES. Many Japanese baseball officials are "outraged" that MLB teams are courting Tazawa, as they "insist it is long-established practice for amateurs like him to be strictly off limits" to MLB teams. However, some MLB officials maintain their protocol agreement with NPB "does not forbid either league from courting amateur talent from the other's nation." Sources indicated that when one Japanese rep "characterized the rule as a gentlemen's agreement" during a meeting in N.Y., he was "angrily rebutted" by an MLB official. MLB Exec VP/Labor Relations Rob Manfred: "I'm sure we will have ongoing conversation with them about how we might -- might -- be able to address their concerns." Mets GM Omar Minaya said, "It's a sensitive area. It's fair to say that if we were to go out and get their college players, what would prevent them from coming after our college players?" However, Yankees GM Brian Cashman said, "There has been an understanding. There's been a reason that Japanese amateurs haven't been signed in the past, so we consider him hands off." Schwarz & Lefton note the protocol agreement between MLB and NPB "does not address the signing of either nation's amateur players." Tazawa "would not be the first modern Japanese amateur to sign" with an MLB team, but the "first to do so against [NPB's] wishes" (N.Y. TIMES, 11/20).
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