According to Sankei Sports, the Nippon Ham Fighters are willing to post starter Yu Darvish if he wants to play in the Majors. A possible posting fee in excess of Daisuke Matsuzaka’s $51MM is a big factor.
Maybe one of our Japanese speakers can read the article and weigh in on this. Last time it turned out to be more of a propaganda piece than anything else, but this would appear to be more substantial.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Joel // Feb 6, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Here we go again…
I also read something that Peter Gammons was speculating that a Darvish posting fee could reach 100 mil.
I don’t know why he was speculating on that…maybe he knows something.
2 armz dealer // Feb 6, 2008 at 7:39 pm
I don’t care how much the Nippon Ham would be slated to rake by posting Darvish. IMO, there is nooo way it will happen. Darvish is the face of JN baseball now that everyone’s favorite boy from Yokohama, Mr. Nation Hero, is winning World Series rings in Boston. Not that the pressure from the league brass can completely stop it from happening, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE would be up in arms if YU got posted.
BTW, check out Davish’s web site if you want a good laugh. He’s not a ballplayer. He’s a Japanese SUPER model!
3 Simon Currie // Feb 6, 2008 at 10:00 pm
The key is “if he wants to play in the Majors” and he’s never indicated that he wants to… yet. He may get bored of dominating NPB if he continually repeats Sawamura type seasons. He still has like 7 years of service until he becomes FA eligible, so I don’t expect him to be posted for another 5-6 years, despite the GM’s lip service (I sincerely doubt that the Fighters are willing to let go of a truly dominating pitcher like Yu, unless they’re forced to, despite the boatloads of money. Look at what good that did for Seibu
).
The Fighters possibly play in the most extreme pitchers park (I really should do park factors one of these days… when I have time), and run production in Japan is supressed due to emphasis on small ball, so it’ll be interesting to see how Darvish’s seasons (upcoming ones too) translate into MLB equivalencies.
4 westbaystars // Feb 7, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Argh! I tried to kill this before it got spread around. But the big, bold headline at JapanBaseballDaily.com seemed to shout louder than me.
I’d stopped reading SanSpo long ago because of the sensationalism in many of their articles.
It’s just camp talk. The reporter talked with the Seattle Mariner’s Yamamoto-scout. He talks about how much he’d like to get Darvish and Sho Nakata, but [Darvish] said he still wanted to prove himself in Japan. From this interview the reporter spun a story whereby it’ll be OK for Darvish to head to the Majors after the 2008 season.
I wouldn’t say that the possibility is 0%. But there is nothing credible about the story. It is fiction. And I wish people would stop taking these headlines meant to attract commuters in train stations at face value.
5 salva // Feb 8, 2008 at 1:03 am
Truly or not, I want to see Yu in MLB
Maybe, if he plays in the WBC II against some MLB players, he becomes interested :D!
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