Following up on a piece we did back in August, Japanese baseball star Yu Darvish is starting to attract interest from some specific Major League Baseball teams, namely the New York Yankees (no surprise there), Baltimore Orioles, Toronto Blue Jays and Washington Nationals.
Darvish is a hotly-anticipated commodity among MLB teams, as many believe he will become the next Japanese baseball player to make it in the United States, and be a totally dominant relief pitcher for whichever team he signs with.
The 25-year old had a sparkling season this past year with the Nippon Ham Fighters. As the Sporting News points out,
Darvish, 25, went 18-6 with a 1.44 ERA and 276 strikeouts in 232 innings this past season in Japan. The righthander has had a sub-2.00 ERA in each of the past five seasons, the Daily News notes.
Of course, as the saga of Daisuke Matsuzaka pointed out, whichever MLB team wants to sign Darvish will first have to pay a hefty posting fee just to open negotiations; Matsuzaka’s posting fee was exorbitant, and cost the Boston Red Sox a large amount of money before they signed him to a contract, and his deal has proven to be somewhat of a mistake given his recent injury history.
Any team that wants Darvish would probably have to pay a bunch of money too, so that immediately limits his list of potential suitors to the more wealthy franchises like the ones listed above.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Related posts:
- Is Yu Darvish Going to Come to the United States?
- Hisashi Iwakuma the next great Japanese import star to MLB?
- Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, and their teams helping out Japan in a big way
- New book: biography of Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese baseball legend
- Seattle Mariners, Oakland A’s to Open 2012 MLB Season in Japan
