The Problem With Posting

Many of you know that I am a bit of a sports fanatic. Have been for as long as I can remember. I used to lay on the kitchen floor with the newspaper spread open to the sports section when I was like 5-6 years old. I would read the latest statistics about the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, the Winnipeg Jets, and even a little bit about other sports stars like Magic Johnson and some new guy named Jordan or something. I could even count by sevens before I got too deep into elementary school, because as you all know, that's how many points a touchdown is in football.


Anyhow, lately in the news of MLB (Major League Baseball, for those of you who are not into sports), Japanese phenom pitcher Yu Darvish has agreed to let his Japanese team (the Nippon Ham Fighters, who play in Sapporo) accept bids from major league teams for his services. See, he is still under contract with the Fighters, but wants to play in the best league in the world. So any MLB team that wants to sign him to a contract, must first pay the Fighters organization in order to gain the right to negotiate a contract with the pitcher. This money is referred to as "posting."

The problem is this: if he were a free agent, he could leave Japan and the Nippon Professional Baseball league without the Fighters receiving a yen of compensation from the major leagues. Not a problem yet, but... if a major league team wants to sign him, they are looking at paying upwards of $30 million just to get exclusive rights to sign him to a contract. So what happens? The major league team then has $30 million less to pay Darvish himself. The result is that his contract is significantly less than it would be if he were a free agent. Make sense? Let's say the Toronto Blue Jays win the bidding war. (They are one of a few teams that are said to have a serious shot at him.) And let's say they have $80 million to play with, over a period of, say, 5 years. Well, average that out, and it's $16 million per year. But wait... $30 million goes to the Fighters, leaving $50 million for Darvish. Now, $10 million per year is a pretty hefty salary, but when you consider it's 37.5% less than he would get were he a free agent, well, that's a pretty significant cut.

Why am I wasting so many words to explain what's happening to a baseball player that has nothing to do with my life? (Well actually, my friend's daughter used to see him jogging around their neighborhood up in Sapporo, so he is *sort of* connected to me!)

Because I experienced something similar in my own life lately. Let me explain. It's Christmas time, and I have family back in Canada. To be honest, none of my family, other than my nephews, is getting presents from me. It's just the way our family does things. We have all the material possessions we could possibly want, so instead of spending time and energy and money on getting each other gifts we really don't need, we just skip the commercialism of the season.

Back to my point. My nephews are getting gifts from me. And I have X-amount of money to spend on their gifts. But because of the distance between us, I cannot just spend 100% of my allotted capital on their presents. I also have to consider "posting" costs. So even though they deserve expensive presents, roughly 37.5% (haha, just using the same number as above) of my money goes to the post office, for the service of delivering my gift to Canada safely. Perhaps one of these years, I will find a way around this, and my nephews will get a closer approximation to what they deserve, instead of gifts that have a "posting" cost factored in.

Either way, Merry Christmas to my wonderful nephews, my brothers, my "in-laws" and my parents in Canada. And my friends and family all around the world. It's still a little early for those words, but I figured I'd better send you season's greetings while I think of it!