By: Tyler Ward
It was announced late Monday night that the defending American League champions Texas Rangers have won the Yu Darvish sweepstakes, successfully making a record bid of $51.7 million to talk to the Japanese pitching phenom, who was heavily courted by many teams including the Rangers, New York Yankees and others.
Although Rangers general manager Jon Daniels did not say how much the bid was, sources say it eclipsed the $50 million mark. Bidding closed last Wednesday and Darvish's former team, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, had until 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday to accept.
The Rangers now have thirty days to negotiate a deal with Darvish and his representatives, Don Nomura and Arn Tellem. If the Rangers and Darvish fail to come to an agreement, the posting fee will be voided and the pitcher will return to Japan to pitch next season. Along with the winning bid, the Rangers will likely spend over $100 million on the pitcher if they reach an agreement.
Darvish is considered to be one of the best pitchers in Japan, along with being noted as one of the most highly-touted prospects in recent history.
Tellem said of the Rangers' winning bid, "We were pleased to learn that the Texas Rangers were the high bidders for Yu Darvish. The Rangers are an extraordinary franchise in an exceptional city with equally exceptional fans. Yu is honored to be prized so highly and recognized as a once-in-a-generation pitcher. We look forward to getting negotiations under way."
The bid on Darvish is slightly higher than the one given to Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2007 by the Boston Red Sox. Matsuzaka and his representatives were paid $51.1 million. Boston eventually signed Matsuzaka to a six-year, $52 million contract, so the Red Sox invested a total of $103.3 million in the pitcher.
However, it is questionable as to why the Rangers placed a bid on Darvish, as they already seemingly have their rotation set for the 2012 season with Colby Lewis, Derek Holland, Alexi Ogando, Matt Harrison and Neftali Feliz, who spent last season as the team's closer, but will enter the starting rotation next season -- the Rangers signed former Twins closer Joe Nathan in the offseason to take the place of Feliz in the closer role.
Texas lost their No. 1 starter C.J. Wilson during the offseason, as the left-handed ace signed with the Rangers' division rival, the Los Angeles Angels, on a five-year, $77.5 million deal -- and as we all know, these same Angels agreed on a 10-year, $252 million contract with Albert Pujols.
The 6-foot-5 right-hander posted an 18-6 record last season with a league-leading 1.44 ERA and 276 strikeouts. He also pitched in the 2009 World Baseball Classic and the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Darvish started pitching professionally when he was just 18 years old.
Although putting up mediocre numbers in his first professional season, Darvish came back to post a 12-5 record in his second season with a 2.89 ERA and 115 strikeouts. He has slowly gotten better and better since then and has become arguably the best pitcher in Japan and now will take his talents to the United States if he can reach a deal with Nolan Ryan's Rangers -- a team who has won the American League pennant the last two seasons, but failed to win the World Series in both years.
The 25-year-old is thought to have an amazing collection of seven different pitches that also includes a two-seamer that he added to the repertoire in 2010.
For his career, Darvish has a 93-38 record in Japan in seven season with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. He has started a total of 164 games, completing 55 of those contests and also posting 18 shutouts. Darvish has also registered 1,268.1 innings pitched, giving up just 916 hits and 281 earned runs -- which comes out to a 1.99 ERA. He has also struck out 1,259 batters, which averages a shade under one strikeout per inning.
He has also posted an ERA under 2.00 in five straight campaigns, with his best season coming last season, as the right-hander posted an 18-6 record with ten complete games and six shutouts -- he also struck out 276 batters and accumulated a 1.44 ERA in last year's juncture.
However, with the unfortunate history of Japanese and Chinese pitchers lately, it is unclear as to how Darvish will fare in the majors. Many scouts project that he will be a team's No. 1 or 2 pitcher and he will be the best prospect thus far.
But for the team's sake, they better hope that Darvish will eventually become one of the team's top starters, if they can come to an agreement with the pitcher. Hopefully, he would perform better than former Japanese players that have decided to take their talents to the United States.
Let's take a look at some of the former players that have come to America before Darvish:
* Kei Igawa, New York Yankees: 2-4 record, 6.66 ERA, 53 strikeouts; $46 million investment
* Kazuhisi Ishii, Los Angeles Dodgers: 39-34 record, 4.44 ERA, 435 strikeouts; also pitched for the New York Mets
* Hideki Irabu, New York Yankees: 34-35 record, 5.15 ERA, 405 strikeouts; also played for the Montreal Expos and Texas Rangers (Died in 2002)
* Tomo Ohka, Boston Red Sox: 50-67 record, 4.20 ERA, 573 strikeouts; also pitched for the Washington Nationals, Milwaukee Brewers, Toronto Blue Jays and Cleveland Indians
* Akinori Otsuka, San Diego Padres: 13-15 record, 2.44 ERA, 217 strikeouts, 39 saves; also played for the Texas Rangers
* Shingo Takatsu, Chicago White Sox: 8-6 record, 3.38 ERA, 88 strikeouts, 27 saves; also played for the New York Mets
* Kazuhiro Sasaki, Seattle Mariners: 7-16 record, 3.14 ERA, 242 strikeouts, 129 saves
* Mac Suzuki, Seattle Mariners: 16-31 record, 5.72 ERA, 327 strikeouts; also played for the Kansas City Royals, Colorado Rockies and Milwaukee Brewers
* Shigetoshi Hasegawa, Los Angeles Angels: 45-44 record, 3.71 ERA, 447 strikeouts; also played for the Seattle Mariners
* Hiroki Kuroda, Los Angeles Dodgers: 41-46 record, 3.45 ERA, 523 strikeouts; currently a Free Agent
* Takashi Saito, Los Angeles Dodgers: 21-15 record, 2.18 ERA, 389 strikeouts, 84 saves; also played for the Boston Red Sox, Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers -- signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks for the 2012 season
* Junichi Tazawa, Boston Red Sox: 2-3 record, 7.46 ERA, 13 strikeouts
* Koji Uehara, Baltimore Orioles: 5-9 record, 3.13 ERA, 188 strikeouts; was traded to the Texas Rangers on July 30, 2011
* Hisanori Takahashi, New York Mets: 14-9 record, 3.55 ERA, 166 strikeouts, 10 saves; signed a two-year, $8 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels on Dec. 2, 2010
* Hideo Nomo, Los Angeles Dodgers: 123-109 record, 4.24 ERA, 1,918 strikeouts; considered the best Japanese pitcher of all-time -- also played for Mets, Brewers, Tigers, Red Sox, Rays and Royals
* Daisuke Matsuzaka, Boston Red Sox: 46-27 record, 4.18 ERA, 542 strikeouts; underwent Tommy John surgery in early June 2011
* Hideki Okajima, Boston Red Sox: 17-8 record, 3.36 ERA, 215 strikeouts
Of course, since Japanese players have immigrated to Major League Baseball, there have been more pitchers, but the ones listed above are just the notable ones and as the readers can see, most of these players have been mediocre throughout their MLB careers. Few have actually stood out and had decent careers, such as Nomo, Matsuzaka, Okajima, Kuroda and Ishii. Some of the others were just flat out mediocre and were never able to make a name for themselves, other than checking their names in the "Bust Box", most notably Igawa.
If you want to look at it on paper, there have been better hitters to come to the United States than pitchers -- including Ichiro, who is undoubtedly the best Japanese player to ever put on a MLB uniform. Others include Kosuke Fukudome, Hideki Matsui, Kaz Matsui, So Taguchi, Kenji Johjima, Tad Iguchi, Akinori Iwamura and Tsuyoshi Nishioka, who made his professional debut last season with the Minnesota Twins.
The point here is that there have really never been that many great players that have come over from Japan other than Ichiro, who is likely to eventually make it into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Hideki Matsui, Matsuzaka and Nomo have all been good players -- so in reality, only four players out of the myriad of Japanese players have gone on to successfully build a solid career, which means the odds are stacked up against Darvish.
But personally, I believe Darvish will flourish in Major League Baseball and I haven't thought that since Ichiro arrived many years ago. The pitcher seems to have all the tools to become a great pitcher in the United States and he will definitely use those to his advantage. I believe that he will eventually become a top player in the Rangers' rotation, perhaps even their No. 1 starter in the next couple of seasons.
If the two sides are able to reach an agreement and if Darvish is able to make it into the Rangers' rotation and start thirty games, I believe his record will look like this for his rookie season: 14-7 record, 3.22 ERA, 167 strikeouts, 73 walks, along with two complete games, including one shutout. We'll see what happens.
I'm not going to guarantee it, but I have a good feeling that Darvish will succeed and it will be worth the $100+ million the Rangers will spend in order to bring him to their franchise.
The former Kansas Jayhawk was drafted with the 27th overall selection by the New Orleans Hornets and on draft day, was consequently sold to the Portland Trail Blazers. On the same day, Arthur was part of a three-team deal that sent him to Memphis, while the Rockets traded the rights to Nicolas Batum to Portland -- the Grizzlies also dealt Donte Greene and a 2009 second-round pick to Houston, while the Rockets traded Joey Dorsey to Portland.
