You may not have felt it, but the transpacific trade of baseball players changed on September 11. No, this isn’t about that 9/11, but something far more peaceful, if similarly paradigm-shifting. On September 11, 2008, pitcher Junichi Tazawa, one of Japan’s top prospects, announced he would ignore the Japanese draft in order to play in the American major leagues. Until then, no top Japanese amateur player had ever bypassed the Japanese league draft to go straight to Major League Baseball.

For over forty-five years, MLB teams have agreed not to pursue Japanese amateurs, which has led to players like Hideo Nomo and Ichiro Suzuki waiting until they were free agents under the rules of NPB (Nippon Professional Baseball, the Japanese equivalent of MLB). Only twice have any Japanese players skipped the NPB draft to go straight the major leagues the Japanese draft, and they were middling players with middling results.

Kazuhito Tadano didn’t have much of a choice—after it was revealed he’d been in a gay porn video, none of the NPB teams would touch him and the Japanese pitcher ended up in MLB. Tadano pitched adequately for Cleveland in 2004 and 2005, but he is now back in Japan after bouncing around minor league ball the last few years.

Mac Suzuki was the third Japanese-born player ever to play in MLB, and the first to deliberately forego the NPB amateur draft. He came to the majors straight out of high school at age 17 in 1992, and was signed by the Mariners in 1993. After his major-league debut in 1996, he ended up logging 465 innings in between 1996 and 2001, mostly for AL clubs, notching 16 wins against 31 losses with a 5.72 ERA and a 1.65 WHIP. Since leaving MLB, he has also bounced around; in his case, it’s been an international journey that’s taken him from Japan to Taiwan to Canada to Mexico.

We came close to this moment in 1998, when Anaheim was in hot pursuit of Koji Uehara, who ultimately chose to play for the Yomiuri Giants. Interestingly, Uehara has become a star in Japan and now has expressed his desire to play in the States.

These three examples would seem to offer a cautionary tale for a player considering skipping the draft, or at least a classic dilemma: better to be the big carp in the small NPB pond, or just another also-ran in MLB?

There are plenty of incentives to do so, at least as far as playing in America goes.

MLB offers more money and greater international prestige. But NPB has its own benefits, mostly the security of a position that pays well, with excellent job security. Like most Japanese businesses, the sports teams want to foster long-term relationships with their players, and take excellent care of them, expecting the affection to be reciprocated.

On the negative side, NPB players must wait nine years to become free agents, at which time their team can post them for MLB teams to bid on his services (this is how we got Daisuke Matsuzaka and Ichiro Suzuki, as well as Hideki Irabu). It is a team-friendly arrangement typical of the days of the Major League reserve clause, under which players were mere chattel for their respective teams until Curt Flood’s stance against it led to its removal in 1975.

Tazawa’s challenge to the NPB isn’t as belligerent and provocative as Flood’s refusal to report to the Phillies, but it may lead to similar changes. Since the NPB amateur draft hasn’t yet occurred, Tazawa’s announcement serves as a kind of preemptive strike. As part of his announcement, his agent sent a letter to all 12 NPB clubs explaining his intention to forego the draft. Two teams, however—Hokkaido and his hometown Yokohama—have not yet agreed to respect his wishes.

If he is drafted, he may be faced with actually making a decision. In addition to the pros and cons above, there is also a substantial component of national pride for Japanese players to remain in their home country’s league, particularly when that league allows them to also represent their country in the Olympics and other international tournaments, something MLB refuses to do. His announcement was no doubt intended, in part, to remove that difficult choice from him, but teams may elect to force him to face that decision—or to cover themselves in case he decides to remain in Japan.

Whether or not that happens, the announcement has set into motion further discussions within NPB and with MLB about what to do with Tazawa’s situation. Part of the question revolves around unfair access to players, since NPB scouts are restricted in their contact with amateurs, but MLB scouts have no such restrictions. If Tazawa does bypass the draft, there will certainly be changes to the policy between Japanese and American leagues, at the very least codifying what has been in effect a hands-off gentleman’s agreement since 1962.

Assuming that he does become eligible for MLB’s amateur draft, who might select him? He has been scouted by several teams, including Atlanta, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Detroit, and the Cubs. With the formidable Asian presence already established in Boston with Matsuzaka and Okajima, he would undoubtedly be most comfortable there. New York’s Hideki Matsui or Chicago’s Kosuke Fukudome would also provide him with a friendly face. These are also the teams most likely to shell out the most money for him.

But these are merely the teams that have scouted him, and nobody’s said yet that they’d definitely draft him. He’s 22, and the jury is still out on his tools. Reports peg his fastball at anywhere from the low 90s to 97, with middling control and a good forkball and curve to mix in.

He’s never faced pro level pitching anywhere, and his highest level of experience is with his current team, the semipro team Eneos (sponsored by Nippon Oil), which plays in a corporate league. He’s been dominant there, as well as in the diluted minor-league talent pool of the Baseball World Cup last year (another tourney in which MLB does not allow its players to participate). The talent level is high in both, but it’s still hard to compare them to more than AA minor league teams in the States.

So it’s hard to say whether he’ll be more Hideki Matsui or Hideki Irabu. Even Matsuzaka, the $50 Million Man, has struggled at times—his 15-12, 4.40 ERA performance from last season has been followed up by a much stronger 17-2, 2.93 ERA this season. But Dice-K’s peripherals are shaky in 2008, with a K/BB ratio that’s ballooned up horribly this year (143 Ks against 90 BBs). He leads the league in hits per nine innings and is tied for the league in walks allowed.

Other Japanese pitchers have struggled this year in the majors, from Masa Kobayashi and Kei Igawa to Yasuhiko Yabata, even as Hiroki Kuroda and Takashi Saito (when healthy) have succeeded. There’s no guarantee, then, that Tazawa will be any more successful than any other American top prospect.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? Giving the Japanese players the same chance at MLB success that players in America (and throughout the West) already enjoy. Tazawa may sink or swim in the major leagues—assuming he doesn’t knuckle under to the pressure and remain in Japan—but whatever happens, he is sure to be the first of many amateurs who come straight to the States. Or he may lead to a radical restructuring of either league’s amateur draft or their relationship with one another.