Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday he would like revisions made to the posting system agreement for Japanese players that the league has with Nippon Professional Baseball by this offseason.
Under the current posting system which has been in place since 2013, any major league team willing to pay a maximum fee of $20 million to an NPB team has the right to negotiate with a player put up for bidding.
Manfred acknowledged that each country currently has different systems but said he wanted more of a uniform system that applies to professional players moving to the majors.
"We have different systems for different countries right now," Manfred told a press conference after an owners meeting. "And usually uniformity is a good thing. We'd like to have more uniformity."
With the highly anticipated move to the United States of Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters two-way star Shohei Otani expected to happen as early as this winter, MLB has already begun conversations about changes to the posting system with NPB.
The posting system, which is also used in South Korea, is the only way for NPB's non-free agents like Otani to sign with a major league ballclub.
In December, MLB and its players union announced a new collective bargaining agreement that caps the amount of money teams can use to sign under-25 talent from overseas.