The New York Yankees were the highest bidders on infielder Hiroyuki Nakajima, a Japanese player that last played for the Seibu Lions.
The winning bid was for approximately $2 Million, according to Jon Heyman.
You can find Nakajima's Japanese stats here. Obviously, since he doesn't carry the hype of a Yu Darvish, it's hard to really speculate what role he'll have on the team or how well his play will translate to American baseball.
However, in a market where mediocre veteran middle infielders like Mark Ellis and Jamie Carroll are getting two year deals approaching $10 million, I like this kind of creativity. I doubt Nakajima's salary will far exceed the posting fee, and if the guy can OPS .900 in Japan, one would have to think that he won't embarass himself here.
In any even, this could mean a couple of different things:
1. The Yankees just put in a bid to see if he would be available for that little posting fee. He was.
2. The Yankees are planning on trading Eduardo Nunez.
3. The Yankees will not re-sign Eric Chavez, and Nakajima will replace Chavez.
4. The Yankees are going to go hard after Hiroki Kuroda, and Nakajima could help sway Kuroda towards joining the Yankees.
I probably think #3 and #1 are the most likely reasons behind this.