Urgency added to the Seiya Suzuki signing sweepstakes

For weeks, it has been discussed that the Hiroshima Carp would post outfielder Seiya Suzuki, allowing a Major League Baseball team to begin the process of officially signing him to a deal. Now we know the date that will happen, and we also know there will likely be some urgency behind the bargaining as well.

Here’s why MLB teams will be pushing to sign Hiroshima Carp outfielder Seiya Suzuki

According to Jon Heyman of MLB Network, MLB has informed teams that the 27-year-old Suzuki will be posted on Monday morning. If that indeed happens, MLB teams would have a 30-day window to negotiate with him. The window would close in theory at 5 p.m. Eastern/2 p.m. Pacific on December 22.

However, the window may close much sooner than that. With the current Collective Bargaining Agreement set to expire on December 1, if a new one is not in place at that time, all transactions would be frozen until a new CBA is in place. That means no team could sign Suzuki until the work stoppage would conclude.

So do teams have just between Monday and December 1 to sign Suzuki? According to Joel Sherman of The New York Post and MLB Network, Suzuki’s transaction clock would also go into a deep freeze if the CBA expires, meaning once transactions could begin again, so would the countdown to sign Suzuki. It’s estimated there would be roughly three weeks left in the Suzuki signing period once a new CBA is in place.

That does mean that Suzuki can decide to see what offers come in before the CBA expires, or wait to see what the MLB environment is like once a new deal is in place. However, depending on how long the work stoppage were to last, Suzuki could find himself considering a contract with an MLB team just before the season began under a worst-case scenario.

It has been rumored that the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Texas Rangers, San Francisco Giants, and Seattle Mariners have been interested in Suzuki, and there are likely other “mystery teams” who will at the very least submit a bid in an attempt to win his services.

What might it cost to obtain Suzuki? MLBTradeRumors predicts a five-year, $55 million deal, which would not only benefit Suzuki but the Carp as well. Here’s why, from this MLBTradeRumors article:

"Any big league team that signs Suzuki would owe the Carp a fee equal to 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter. For example, if Suzuki were signed for $55MM as MLBTR predicted, the signing team would have to pay the Carp $10.125MM, bringing the total bill to $65.125MM."

What makes Seiya Suzuki so special? Our own David Hill broke down some of that information in this article.