FanHouse Yusei Kikuchi

Just a few days after announcing that he won't return to the Seattle Mariners in 2010, Kenji Johjima has signed a four-year deal with the Hanshin Tigers of the Japanese Central League. NPB Tracker says the deal is a four-year deal worth the equivalent of $27.25 million, which is a pretty nice deal for him after opting out of the $16 million owed to him by the Mariners.

Johjima spent the first nine seasons of his career with the team currently known as the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in NPB's Pacific League, and there he was a 30-homer player between 2001 and 2004 before hopping across the Pacific to the Mariners. After struggling with the Mariners the past two years, the decision to move back to NPB clearly makes a ton of sense; he'll make more money, he'll be back home, and the smaller parks may give him a chance to regain his power stroke.

With the news this week that top Japanese prospect Yusei Kikuchi is contemplating jumping straight from a Japanese high school to American professional baseball, the relationship between Japanese baseball and the major leagues continues to grow complicated. Like Junichi Tazawa last year, Kikuchi is expected to be the first pick in this year's Nippon Pro Baseball (NPB) draft and will probably command a seven-figure bonus in the States.

Like his predecessor, though, Kikuchi is worried about the restrictive transfer agreement between NPB and Major League Baseball hindering his ability to have a full career in America.

In Japan, players are drafted right into NPB after high school, where they remain property of their teams for nine years before declaring free agency. The only way to move to an American team before that deadline is for the player's team to "post" them, allowing American clubs to bid on the rights to negotiate with them.

Every year, the relationship between American baseball and Japanese baseball gets a little more complicated. Reports Tuesday indicate that Yusei Kikuchi, a high school pitcher expected to be the first player picked in Nippon Professional Baseball's amateur draft late next month, is contemplating skipping the draft in favor of coming to America.