SoftBank Hawks slugger Nobuhiko Matsunaka re-signed on a seven-year contract with the Pacific League club on Friday.
Matsunaka inked the deal in his second round of talks with SoftBank, surpassing Yokohama BayStars pitcher Daisuke Miura's six-year contract for the longest ever by a Japanese player in professional baseball.
From this year, the 32-year-old Matsunaka will get an estimated 500 million yen annual salary, a 180 million yen pay raise from 2005, over four years plus performance-based incentives.