Rosenthal: Tanaka’s release fee to be paid across two years

Via Ken Rosenthal: The $20M release fee for Masahiro Tanaka will be paid out in two installments — $13M in 2014 and $7M in 2015. Under the old system, the posting fee had to be paid out in one lump sum as soon as the player signed. The installment plan was added to the new system as a way to give smaller market clubs a better chance of landing the player, which … whatever. MLB continues to bend over backwards for the small markets. This doesn’t really impact the Yankees.