Texas Rangers Sign Yu

The MLB Winter Meetings last month brought much discussion about free agents and their possible destinations. All eyes were on first baseman Albert Pujols who ended up going to the Angles for a ten-year, 240-million-dollar contract.  The Angels weren’t quite done there; they also picked up All Star pitcher and Texas Rangers rotation front man C.J. Wilson for a five-year, 77.5-million-dollar contract.

Losing Wilson is a big blow for the Rangers. Even though they have a solid pitching rotation, Wilson was the best of the bunch.  Prior to losing Wilson, Texas signed closer Joe Nathan, which allowed them to move the hard throwing Neftali Feliz from his role as closer into the starting rotation for support.  After the Nathan signing, Wilson signed a new contract as a free agent with the Angels, which left the Rangers with a gap to fill.  The team responded by signing young Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish, who had recently submitted himself to the posting process for an MLB team to sign him.

The posting process is similar to a silent auction. Clubs will send a sealed bid to the team that currently owns the player for the rights to speak with them, and then have 30 days to negotiate a new contract.  In 2007, Daisuke Matsuzaka went through the posting process and the Boston Red Sox submitted the winning bid with a record 51.1 million dollar offering. To speak with Darvish, the Rangers posted a winning bid of 51.7 million dollars, breaking the Red Sox record, and giving themselves thirty days to negotiate with the ace pitcher.  The dealings went right down to the 5 PM EST deadline on January 18th, but the Rangers were able to pull out a 6 year $60 mil deal.

Yu Darvish is a 25-year-old, 6’5″ right handed pitcher with a good repertoire.  He throws a fastball that ranges from 91 to 95 mph and has a great selection of off -peed pitches. He was able to work those pitches into a 93-38 career record with his former club, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, and also accumulated a 1.99 career ERA.

For any pitcher, that’s a great career mark, even more so for a pitcher who started his professional career at the age of 18. It’s tough to project how well he’ll translate to pitching over here in the United States. According to Dan Szymborski of ESPN, Darvish is projected to have a thirteen win season and post a 3.51 ERA.  If Darvish can hit those numbers, you can expect to see the Texas Rangers make their third consecutive World Series appearance, and maybe even take it all this season.