November 17, 2019: Tokyo — As promised, the LRS Special Task Force continues to move quickly in their efforts to repair damage caused by one of the more egregious scandals in sports history. Today the group announced details for the contraction process they will follow to remove four teams from their ranks. “It was a difficult task, really,” said Kevin Vail, GM of the Shin Seiki franchise, and leader of the Task Force. “Made even more so because of the emotional aspect of the whole thing. It’s hard to see something hurt, even when you know it’s for the best. It’s maybe like cauterizing a wound, you know?”

Yes, Mr. Vail. Fans around the whole of Japan know. But if one thing can be said about fan reaction to this process is that there seems to be a groundswell of support for the idea of raising the “International League” status of the LRS up to where it can stand among the best organizations in the whole of the baseball world. Polls around the nation are heavily slanted toward the idea of the LRS franchises being “Major League” quality, and the ticket offices of the remaining eight teams are reporting a deluge of calls asking to extend their season tickets. Yes, Mr. Vail, fans know how hard it is, but they also seem to be primed for the rise to “Major League” status.

In the meantime, the league announced initial plans for three fundamental elements to the dispersal process, each designed to ensure the human assets of the contracted teams (players, personnel, and draft picks) are properly handled. After that, the league may well work to tweak the finances of the league to protect Kawaguchi, which everyone in the league admits is still bleeding cash.

“While we’re still open to critique by the rest of the league’s GMs, we see it all unfolding in three separate processes,” Vail said before he outlined the following:

Players: All players in the four contracted organizations will be placed into a single pool (using the league’s StatsLab database), and the existing teams will then proceed to draft these players. Once a player has been drafted, the receiving team absorbs all terms and conditions of that player’s contract. To be clear, also, all players’ service time will continue to be in force, and as far as the player is concerned it will be as if that player’s contract was never in question. The draft order remains in some question, though it is expected to be a snaking process that will progress in reverse order of the existing team’s 2019 LRS regular season records. At any point, a team may complete their draft process by passing.

Whatever is determined as far as the order is concerned, the draft will continue until each team has passed. At that point, any player in the draft pool who is not claimed will be immediately declared to be a free agent, and will be available to any baseball club in the world.

Personnel (managers, coaches, etc.): With the need to staff two more minor league teams, each of the existing eight franchises will enter into a draft process to claim personnel from the contracted teams. By drafting a manager/coach, etc., the drafting team absorbs the terms of that personnel’s entire contract. Similar to the player dispersal process, the draft will continue until all teams have passed, and then all remaining personnel will be provided a severance package, and will immediately become free agents, available to contract with any other franchise in the world. At the time of this writing, the draft order had not been specified, but the Task Force felt this would be a simple step to resolve.

Draft Picks: Again, with the need to fill an additional two levels of minors, the draft picks of the contracted teams are expected to be distributed to the existing eight franchises. As with the player draft, this will likely be done in a snaking draft process, progressing in reverse order of their 2019 LRS regular season records. This was apparently agreed upon because the thought was that it gave the lower teams the top picks, and would serve to provide more depth to the higher ranking teams in the league.

FINANCIAL RAMIFICATIONS CONCERN THE LEAGUE

In other areas that are equally important, but perhaps less sexy than discussing players and other on-field activities, the Task Force has been working with creditors of the four contracted teams in order to arrive at an equitable payment scheme that will enable the growth vision the LRS seems to have taken. It is no secret that both Kure and Kawaguchi were devastated by the swath that the notorious “Mr. Slimeball” cut through the LRS.

Kawaguchi’s losses amounted to over $58M, over half of which have been written off by the league overall, but that still leaves the team $25M in the red. “We really would like to get Kawaguchi out of the danger zone. This is an odd case, because it’s not a situation where a team was just mismanaged. This is a criminal case, and we don’t want to penalize the new Transmitter management merely because of the criminal actions that created this mess to begin with.”

When pressed to respond to how that could be handled, Vail said. “It’s a little complicated, but basically we expect to be able to use baseball-based funds from the contracted franchises to clear Kawaguchi’s debt.” This is very good news to Transmitter fans across the world. “But there’s still a gap to deal with, and we’ve got a group of people working with creditors to see if we can come up with a way to resolve it. On the bright side, though, we appear to have some new ideas coming in that might help us out there. At the end of the day, this is about coming out of this with stronger franchises that will be able to directly challenge PEBA.”

Vail was unable to explain what those new ideas might be, but this reporter has learned that the condensed LRS, and its possibility of merging or expanding into a global entity, seems to be creating a bit of a sizzle in the board rooms of several web communications and television companies. If true, increased interest from this corner of the world could go a long way toward boosting the Task Force’s vision of creating a league on par with the US-based PEBA. A ranking executive of J-ESPN has said off the record that the league is asking for higher fees for their broadcasting rights, and that it would not surprise her to see each club gain several million dollars in increased revenue from the extended scope of these broadcasting rights, as well as be able to add cash from how the extended advertising power brought on by the raising of the LRS’s profile might affect merchandising efforts. There is also some thought that a silent partner is interested in to further boost Kawaguchi’s financial situation.

Obviously, there’s a lot more to come on this.

ODDS AND ENDS

Vail also noted that the Task Force is considering making a few more changes that would help align the league with its grander vision. “We need to attract players, and we need to let the world know that we’re viable. As such, we’re working closely with the players organization, and trying to find a way to properly raise the base pay of our minimum salary.”

Today, the league minimum for a Japanese player in $81,500. Not a terrible value, of course, but it pales in comparison to players in the US and Europe. While Vail would not be pinned down here, an anonymous insider said this minimum salary might be raised considerably in order to compete directly with the PEBA. “We have lots of issues to discuss on this,” Vail added. “There are deep ramifications to this that we’re working through today. Beyond that, obviously the players union needs to agree on it. But right now the conversations are all very positive.”

CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION CONTINUES

In other news, Japanese law enforcement officials have named Saitama prefecture’s Inspector Yuni Ichihara to lead the investigation into the criminal roots of the scandal. Ichihara is a self-proclaimed LRS fan, and has followed the Transmitters since the league’s inception. He also has been awarded several honors in the force and is thought to be one of Japan’s brightest and most effective crime fighters.

At present there is no word on the possible whereabouts of “Mr. Slimeball,” and Ichihara himself has not yet briefed the public on his thoughts. But a spokesman for the force has suggested that Ichihara seems to be following a financial chain of money and violence that has led him to a collection of Russian crime figures, a contact in the Barbados, and hints of involvement of elements in the Middle East. This all suggests that “Mr. Slimeball,” may well have been a stooge who was beholden to several other dark entities scattered across the globe.