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Monday, December 23, 2024

Pitch Perfect Pay: Dragons 2024 Salary Negotiations


Time for a view of the yearly player budget. I've played around with how I present this a little bit to be both international and more true to the actual money being used. I've added in some different statistics like OPS+ and ERA+ as well. Overall, this is also a way to view who was rated to have had a good season, and who was below expectation. Our view of some stats allows us to make the decision if those decisions were maybe fair or not. 

First things first, two players appear on this list that have been announced since my last post. That of new Cuban arrival, Randy Martinez. Former MLB top prospect, and likely starter reinforcement, Kyle Muller also joins from the Athletics. Martinez joins on a development deal, which we can just straight-up assume will be a ¥10M deal as they always are. Muller, however, I don't have a gauge on how much they're paying him, but my estimate would be about ¥150M which would just about be MLB's minimum salary. I'll update this list as more information becomes available. The deals negotiated with Vosler, Calixte and Mejia have also not been revealed, so I have listed these as 'TBA'. I have however taken an educated guess on how much they've been paid to give an idea of the overall salary. 

The big winners in contract negotiations were Hiroto Takahashi and Seiya Hosokawa. Others made big leaps as well but not with quite the same amount of compensation. Mikiya Tanaka, Shinya Matsuyama, Tatsuya Shimizu and Hiroki Fukunaga made significant salary jumps. Unsurprisingly, The big losers were, Yudai Ono whose 3-year deal following his Sawamura Award-winning 2020 season runs out with Yohei Oshima's similarly long-term deal was also slashed by ¥150M.  The payroll also saw Dayan Viciedo's contract leave the books, while Raidel Martinez's departure collectively saved the Dragons over ¥500M. Michael Feliz's ¥100M has also come off the books while even Shinnosuke Ogasawara's not meagre ¥93M may well not be an issue by the end of the off-season.

USD amounts have been calculated based on the recent exchange rate of 0.64c to ¥100. The idea here is to give international audiences an idea of what kind of money is being paid in Japan and what the overall payroll looks like. I also want to show how much imports are getting paid relative to a theoretical MLB or MiLB salary. Yen amounts given are the same as how they're reported which is in tens of thousands of yen. That is, if a value is 100, the player is getting paid 10x that amount in yen. So this would be ¥1,000,000.

Let's take a look at the money through pitchers first and then we'll look at hitters followed by all departures. I will then talk a little about the overall payroll and the changes between 2023 and 2024. I will also try to extrapolate to previous years to see if there is a trend that payroll is increasing, decreasing or simply holding steady. 

Trying a new way to show the data using Flourish. Let me know if you find it difficult to read or parse through. You can rearrange the data in each column by pressing on the column title.

Yudai Ono was the biggest loser overall while Yuya Yanagi and Daisuke Sobue both had their veteran salaries chopped. The young trio of Hiroto Takahashi, Tatsuya Shimizu and Shinya Matsuyama make out like bandits after all three had a very successful 2024. Hiroto Takahashi breaking through the 100M yen barrier was the fastest for a 5th-year high school graduate in club history. Takahashi's season was also record-breaking having the 6th best ERA in Central League history for a qualified pitcher. He also became the first Central League pitcher to end the season with an ERA in the ones since Minoru Murayama in 1970. For the Dragons, he had the single-best ERA in the post-war, 2-league NPB. Of course, ERA has a lot of other dependent factors, but it's still an amazing feat. I have not included Shinnosuke Ogasawara as of yet with his posting saga continuing. Should he join the fold again, I will update this list accordingly. Let's now have a look at the hitters.

      Those that deserved to get paid, are getting paid. Hosokawa, Fukunaga, Muramatsu and Tanaka all get rewarded for good seasons and first-team regulars (maybe not necessarily "good" in Tanaka's case). Hosokawa and Fukunaga were among the league's leading hitters in 2024 in the Central League with both building on great seasons in 2023. Hosokawa repeated his heroics and a bit more raising his OPS 100 points and hitting for better average. Fukunaga was the unsung hero of the team as he similarly hit at a very high level.  Sho Nakata's contract weighs heavy on this side of the books, but it's only for one year longer. Yohei Oshima showed signs of his decline in 2024 and with his contract coming to an end, the team have also decided to cut his salary significantly, but this probably reflects his relative contribution more now. Oshima was a part-time player and hit below .200 in 2023. At 39 years old in 2025, his journey in professional baseball may be nearing an end. Bringing Kinoshita back for even more money after his dismal season is the only thing that perplexes me. Not only was he bad offensively but also bad defensively. He perhaps gets a bonus for exploring the free agent market, but a ¥20M bump is a bit too generous. He threw out runners at a 15.6% success rate, ranking among the worst in the league while, as I mentioned in my OPS+ article, was the second-worst catcher ranked for OPS+ at 88. Given Shingo Usami's above-average bat and the urgency to make something of Kota Ishibashi, I question this decision, but that's perhaps an article for another day.

Now to the cuts. Viciedo and Martinez's deals were paid in US dollars originally, so this complicates things. Salary is then depending on the exchange rate and this has fluctuated year-to-year. I have found what I think is the correct details of this and have added it below.


Viciedo's contract was getting heavier and heavier as the USD to JPY exchange rate got worse. He earned ¥50M in his final year. His deal was $10M over 3-years. Martinez similarly was signed to a 2-year roughly $5M deal whereas it appears Feliz received his paycheck in yen. This list for the time being includes current free agent Koji Fukutani who is talking with the Swallows and Fighters among other teams. I would suggest the fact this is even being reported would indicate he'll likely move. No news broke about Kinoshita and teams he was supposed to be talking to. Shinnosuke Ogasawara I've similarly added, but once again, I will revise should a move not materialise.

Through departures alone, the Dragons are saving ¥1.3B ahead of the 2024 season. After factoring in raises and confirmed new additions, the Dragons have spent ¥570M. For the pending international signings, conservative estimates would be: Muller at ¥150M (roughly MLB minimum), Vosler at ¥100M (typical for AAAA-type veterans), Calixte at ¥70M (after making 100+ appearances), and Mejia at ¥90M (slight decrease after a down 2024). Even with these conservative estimates adding ¥410M to the payroll, the Dragons are likely to save ¥800-850M compared to 2024. This would leave the yearly team salary at about ¥2.4B for 2025. The question then is, would this indicate room to spend? At this stage, I would caution that the answer is likely, no.


I've tried to visualise the data as best I can here, but it's obvious that 2024 was an outlier year. Even 2023, was on the high end of what the Dragons have spent in the last 10 years. I would deduce that it is far more likely that salary remains roughly where it is than a big-name capture coming from overseas. Baystars reliever J. B. Wendelken is still on the market, and there were reports that the Dragons were interested. Reports still seem to be that the Dragons want an international reliever to bolster the bullpen. That being the case, then we may see a slight uptick, but I don't think it would be more than ¥100M which would be in line with average spending. 

The ownership representative Uichiro Oshima may see things differently in terms of spending compared to the late Bungo Shirai who preceded him as club president. Chunichi Shimbun however has had decreased sales each year since 2020. Unless there has been a change of heart in seeing the team as a possible driver of sales rather than a loss-driven affair, then it would seem unlikely that a large surplus would be available for reinforcements. 

There will be a lot of happy younger players on this roster ahead of 2024, getting their reward for productive seasons. The Dragons have been fortunate that several big money deals have come off the books ahead of 2025 which will give them slightly more wriggle room to give bigger bumps to talented players coming through the ranks. Where this might max out is something to consider in the years to come. During the Ochiai period, salaries were a lot higher with many high-earning veterans, but this was also a period when the Chunichi parent company was seeing more healthy sales. Maybe the Dragons will end up posting more and more players in the future to save/make money? We'll see. 

Many thanks for your attention. Please drop any comments you might have below or on Reddit where I will inevitably post this to /r/NPB and /r/ChunichiDragons. Until my next post, ciao.

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