Nippon Professional Baseball and Major League Baseball are trying to work out a solution for highly touted fastballer Junichi Tazawa's controversial bid to pursue a major league career by bypassing the Japanese draft.
Kazuo Hasegawa, executive director of the NPB commissioner's office, met with senior MLB officials in New York on Tuesday to discuss the issue following the Nippon Oil corporate team ace's announcement last week that he will test the open market in North America.
Tazawa's decision, revealed prior to the Oct. 30 draft, has sent ripples among Japanese baseball officials who fear further outflows of promising talent from the country.
"Both NPB and MLB don't intend to collide with each other," Hasegawa said. "Since this issue has come up, we've been in contact many times over the phone and by e-mail."