Yomiuri Giants slugger Kazuma Okamoto was officially made available to MLB teams through the posting system this week.
It is a move that signals just how entrenched the posting system has become in Japanese baseball since outfielder Alejandro Quezada moved from the Hiroshima Carp to the Cincinnati Reds in 1999. The first Japanese player to utilize the system was Ichiro Suzuki, who went from the Orix BlueWave to the Seattle Mariners during the 2000 offseason.
The posting system has survived in various iterations through the years and has become commonplace in the NPB landscape. Nearly every team has posted at least one player, with the notable exception of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.
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