Before the 2021-22 lockout, Major League Baseball amended its previous agreement with Nippon Professional Baseball to allow Japanese players 45 days to sign with an MLB team once they’ve been posted. The league will not alter that deadline this season. That means NPB players who are posted, like Teruaki Sato, Hiromi Itoh, and Kaima Taira, have until December 15th to sign; however, with a potential lockout beginning on December 1st, that likely means that all NPB players will have to sign before the lockout or return to their teams in Japan.