In the professional baseball world, players from almost all baseball teams completed contract renewals within the last year. There are various human patterns such as players who show a big smile on the big increase in annual salary, players who do not respond as much as expected and have a mysterious expression at the press conference, but there are no players who will be “arbitrated” without negotiations.
Since Hiromitsu Ochiai (then, Chunichi) applied for annual salary arbitration for the first time as a Japanese player in February 1991, the “sen battle” between the players and the team has attracted a great deal of attention from fans. It’s good that the number of “one-shot signs” has increased since the preliminary “negotiations” began to take place, but just in January, I remember the men who had revealed their pride in the past.
Therefore, this time, we picked up a case where negotiations were difficult due to the contract renewal after 2000, which is new to our memory. Look back with the words left by the players.
* All team names are from those days
Norihiro Nakamura who fought against the team many times by renewing the contract
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[“Can I end the brand Norihiro Nakamura?” Norihiro Nakamura (Kintetsu) 2002]
In 2000, he won the double crown (home run king and RBI king) and played an active part as a slugger representing the league. Norihiro Nakamura, who also contributed to Kintetsu’s league victory in 2001, exercised FA rights in 2002 off.
Although he planned to transfer to the major leagues with the remark “Is it okay to end the brand Norihiro Nakamura with Kintetsu?”, It ended in a break and decided to remain with a large contract of 2 billion yen for 4 years.
After that, following the disappearance of Kintetsu in 2004, he signed a contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers using the posting system. Nakamura realized his dream of a major challenge, but decided to return to Japan in just one year because he couldn’t get the chance to participate.
The following year, in 2006, he signed a contract with Orix Buffaloes for an annual salary of 200 million yen and returned to the Japanese baseball world. However, due to the influence of the breakdown, he played only 85 games, batting average .232, 12 home runs, and 45 RBIs, which was a lonely result. The team offered a 60% reduction in annual salary of 80 million yen to Nakamura, who couldn’t perform as expected, but Nakamura claimed that he was injured. The six discussions ended in parallel lines, and he was forced to leave the group.
As a result, after working as a trainee at the camp, he contracted for an annual salary of 4 million yen as a training player for the Chunichi Dragons. In 2007, he played an active role as if he had regained his former brilliance, and reached the regular seat for the first time in three years. In the Japan Series, which started in 2nd place in the season, he won the Japan Series MVP and contributed to the number one in Japan for the first time in 53 years. I signed it for 50 million yen with the words, “I’m grateful that you just made a contract.”
In 2008, two years after joining Chunichi, he said, “I want to hear the evaluations of other teams,” and will exercise his second FA right to transfer to Rakuten. However, after becoming a free contract in two years, he joined Yokohama DeNA in May 2011 after a “Ronin period” of several months. Continued to play until 2014.
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