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1st Year Foreign Player Payscale

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1st Year Foreign Player Payscale

by Patrick Newman (Dec 22, 2013)

I get asked from time to time how much ball players make in Japan, particularly the foreign ones. With Kevin Youkilis becoming the latest bari bari Major Leaguer to venture to NPB, it seemed like a good time to publish this rough guideline.

This was part of a longer article, from my train commute ramblings, that's unfinished and kind of outdated, so the salaries don't reflect what's happened so far in the 2013-2014 offseason. That said, it's still mostly accurate. "Mostly" is kind of a key word, because there is always going to be some variance from team to team, and with injury history and other factors. This is a basic framework.

Salary RangeProfileRecent Examples
$3M MLB All-Star ExperienceAndruw Jones, Bryan LaHair, Vincent Padilla
$1M-3Ma couple of complete seasons as an MLB regular, maybe a few years in the past; elite Korean playersCasey McGehee, Jose Lopez, Nyjer Morgan, Dae-Ho Lee
$400k-1M"4A player"; fringe 40-man roster player, consistently strong performance in 3A; varying MLB experience; strong performance in KoreaDaniel Cabrera, Ryan Spilborghs, Fred Lewis, Jason Dickson, John Bowker, Matt Clark, Brooks Conrad
$100k-300k2A/3A experience, Taiwan, Mexico, US independent leagues, etcMichel Abreu, Orlando Roman, Jim Heuser
<$100knon-ikusei veteran; Japanese independent leagues; Carribean Winter Leagues; Italian LeagueAlessandro Maestri, Enyelbert Soto
$25k-50k"ikusei" player; Dominican/Venezuelan Summer League; Japanese independent leaguesEdgar Lara, Edison Barrios, Abner Abreu
Tags: Andruw Jones, Bryan LaHair, Kevin Youkilis, Vincent Padilla

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