Hanshin, fresh from its first back-to-back Central League titles, will spend the posting fee from three-time Triple Crown winner Teruaki Sato on a first-ever three-player free agent haul, a push one club official warns could leave the roster "in tatters" in four or five years.
Sato, 27, will move to Major League Baseball through the posting system this offseason. Reports in the US put his contract at close to ¥20 billion.
The biggest benefit of a posting move is the fee that reaches the club. When then-ace Kei Igawa, now 47, signed a five-year, roughly ¥2 billion deal with the Yankees after the 2006 season, about ¥3 billion went to Hanshin. The club used the money to build an indoor practice facility next to Koshien Stadium.
Hanshin has already spent heavily on bricks and mortar. Its new farm facility in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, opened with a total construction cost of ¥14.5 billion. This time the Sato money can go straight into players, a former club official said.
On November 7, club president Kazuo Awai declared the intent: "It's not about money. We will go all the way!" Hanshin is aiming to sign three free agents at once for the first time. It last entered the FA market in 2018, when it fought SoftBank for Yuki Nishi, who retired at the end of this season.
The club has prepared four years and ¥1 billion in total for Lotte's Kazuya Kojima, 30, and Orix's Keita Nakagawa, 30, and three years and ¥400 million for Chunichi's Seiji Uebayashi, 31. It also expects to sign several new foreign players.
Talks can begin after the negotiation window opens on November 11, and Hanshin intends to move immediately. Combined salaries are likely to clear ¥3 billion with ease, funded directly by the Sato fee, the former official said.
A familiar pattern
Hanshin has been here before. It spent big on free agents from other clubs, including Takahiro Kanemoto, 58, and Takahiro Arai, 49, and on players returning from the majors such as Kenji Jojima, 50, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, 42, and Kosuke Fukudome, 49. It installed them as core players and still missed the title.
The concern now is what the spending does to the farm. "In four or five years the team will be in tatters," a club official said. Voices within the organization also say the high-school-drafted position players have not developed.