I’m surprised it took this long, but the Yu Darvish to MLB rumors may have just officially kicked off right along with the new year. A Sports Hankook (Korea) report, relying on a Japanese source (Sports Nikkan), says that the Yankees plan to nab Darvish following the 2008 season.
The report goes on to say that the Dodgers, Mets and Cubs have also made “love calls” (러브콜) to Darvish and that the floor of negotiations is something along the lines of what Daisuke Matsuzaka was able to command during his posting extravaganza in 2006.
Analysis: Well, why the heck would Darivsh want to sign with the Yankees when he can make nearly $2 million big ones playing in Japan? If the Dice K signing is the “floor,” I shudder to think what the ceiling might be. Dice K’s signing could be made to look like peanut shells. Given Darvish’s dominance of the NPB at such an early age (21) would $12-$15 million per year be out of the question?
Not to be a killjoy, but it should be noted that this is a Korean newspaper reporting something posted (blogged) on a Japanese newspaper’s Web site. While I’m of the opinion that both sources are reputable in and of themselves (Sports Nikkan was first to report the L.A. signing of Kuroda), the implications of this rumor are too big to not warrant further checking before we hustle Darvish off to New York.
Special thanks to Korea Beat who spotted this and passed it along.
24 responses so far ↓
1 Mike // Jan 2, 2008 at 3:48 am
Darvish cant be posted for a while. Ridiculous report.. This is Fake….
2 John Brooks // Jan 2, 2008 at 4:07 am
Ridiculous report.. This is Fake….
It’s not so much that the report is fake. It’s just that it’s not going to happen. At the moment, there’s no reason Nippon Ham would post the face of their team this short into his career and when he’s so far away from free agency.
Given Darvish’s dominance of the NPB at such an early age (21) would $12-$15 million per year be out of the question?
If he was in MLB now? Then yes, I have to agree with that figure. Given the amount of #4 starters that get around $10-12M/a year, that be a bargain. Heck, you could argue right now he’s more valuable than Carlos Zambrano and Barry Zito who were given outlandish amounts of cash. Besides a few pitchers, you could say Darvish is as valuable as any starting pitcher in MLB.
Though, the question is how well will Darvish hold up over the next 6 years? Will he break down any or will he stay the same? I or anyone else here unlikely knows the answer to that. Though, given my gut feeling I say Darvish should stay pretty healthy.
3 John Brooks // Jan 2, 2008 at 4:15 am
Also one more thing, the Yankees are likely the favorites here. They’re going to want and cash in on the prime Japanese pitching talent after getting embarassed by Boston last November when they were beat by the Red Sox.
Now, the Dodgers, Mets, and Cubs are all interesting scenarios: they could all use a dominating #1-2 starter like Darvish, and in the case of the Mets what better way to steal attention away from the Yankees by signing Darvish? Though, like I mentioned above it’s highly unlikely any of these teams will have the financial resources to out-spend the Yankees.
4 DannP // Jan 2, 2008 at 7:34 am
There aren’t rules to being posted. A player can be posted when the team holding his rights decides it wants to post him. We can argue whether it’ll happen or not until we’re all blue in the face, but no one really knows. It’ll happen when the Ham Fighters decide the value of posting him exceeds the value of his staying in Japan.
5 Mike // Jan 2, 2008 at 8:52 am
He has 6 years left in Japan, they aren’t posting him anytime soon
6 jackson // Jan 2, 2008 at 9:18 am
Never say never. DannP broke it down pretty well I think, if a team makes it worth the HFighter’s while anything can happen, and like he said no one really knows.
7 River Ave. Blues » Yu’s on first? // Jan 2, 2008 at 11:33 am
[...] eyes — and checkbook — on 21-year-old Iranian-Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish. Darvis, according to East Windup Chronicle, is already one of the most dominant pitchers in the NPB and could command upwards of $12 million a [...]
8 A.S. // Jan 2, 2008 at 11:49 am
I agree with DannP too. It’s a longshot, but everyone has their price. You can’t just write it off. Who’s to say the Yankees wouldn’t do something crazy like pay a 100 mil posting fee. 150? 200?
I think this could blow the lid off the whole posting system. Darvish is getting paid 1.75 million to do a job he could do for $15 mill in another country. It raises all kinds of issues, both economic and cultural.
Boras threatened to sue the NPB during the Matsuzaka fiasco. I think we could see something wild like that happen. I’m planning a future article on the topic.
9 MY BASEBALL BIAS - A BIASED LOOK AT THE NEW YORK YANKEES » Who Yu? // Jan 2, 2008 at 4:02 pm
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10 IronChef // Jan 2, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Are the Ham Fighters stable financially? I can see them posting him if they desperately need a cash influx.
Also, I don’t even think Darvish wants to go to the MLB. Doesn’t he hate America?
11 westbaystars // Jan 2, 2008 at 10:10 pm
The report was on the front page of Nikkan Sports (not Sports Nikkan) on New Years Day.
I tend to pay very little attention to what’s on the front page of the sports dailies as the headlines there are meant to attract people’s attention to buy the paper while passing through train stations.
This was all just speculation to tie into the Yankees opening a branch office in Japan this year and building a new stadium to open in 2009. The entire front page (much of which is not on the Web) reads like a MLB PR piece. (Hmm. I don’t suppose the Yanks will need someone bilingual to administer their computers in their Tokyo office?)
Anyway, nothing to see here. Please move on.
12 Stamf // Jan 2, 2008 at 11:19 pm
So what did the article say about the Yankees being interested in Darvish? If it was just aboutt a branch office opening and the Yankees new stadium, where does the report about the Yankees being interested in Yu come from?
I see a tendency in the comments sections I’ve been looking at…Yank fans either Don’t know who he is or are worried he’s the next Igawa, and Japanese baseball fans are trying hardest to dismiss the whole idea.
So to the Japanese baseball fans…what do you make of Darvish’s contract? Is that a fair deal for him? If you were him would you want to play for the Yankees or would you want to stay in Japan so that people like you can have the league you want?
13 YankeeFan // Jan 2, 2008 at 11:49 pm
He’ll come eventually. Sooner than people think.
14 jackson // Jan 3, 2008 at 1:06 am
I like Stamf’s comment a lot.
For any NPB fans that might believe otherwise, lets be clear about one thing: It’s not only the Yankees. Like I said earlier, MLB are besides themselves over Darvish’s talent already and are going to pay any amount of money necessary in order to sign him. I know of several teams out here that are already lining up to empty out their pocketbooks to bring him over. Darvish has #1 staff ace potential and makeup and stuff that nets MLB pitchers 20 million plus per season if not more. He’s making the salary of a 7th inning relief specialist in the NPB. Combine this with the financial incentive the Fighters have to post him and you start to see the writing on the wall.
It’s quite possible that money alone won’t entice Darvish to come over, but my guess is that at a certain point he’s also going to want to prove himself against MLB level talent. It seems counter intuitive to think that a pitcher of his talent and makeup would be content not testing himself at the highest level of competition at some point.
YankeeFan’s comment by the way was said amidst a tirade of maniacal evil laughter while wearing a darth vader helmet.
15 pounder // Jan 3, 2008 at 1:56 am
He’s coming,bank on it.
16 John Brooks // Jan 3, 2008 at 9:40 am
Also, I don’t even think Darvish wants to go to the MLB. Doesn’t he hate America?
I’ve heard many things on this matter. Though one thing I’ve never heard is that he hates America.
I’m remembering reading this article that says Darvish’s father has said he knows of several MLB teams who are interested in Darvish. It’s unknown if these teams have contacted his father or used other channels or not. Also, many MLB teams were interested in Darvish when he was drafted by the Fighters.
As for what Darvish has said, here’s a piece of a comment he said earlier this year:
I think we have to be creative. If all the players and people in the front offices have a positive attitude, I don’t think the game here will lose its popularity
This is what Darvish posted on his official website after Matsuzaka left to the majors. You can read more of this, in piece.
Finally, I have a feeling we’ll know better what Darvish’s plans are after the upcoming season when the 2008 Olympics are over and done with.
I see a tendency in the comments sections I’ve been looking at…Yank fans either Don’t know who he is or are worried he’s the next Igawa, and Japanese baseball fans are trying hardest to dismiss the whole idea.
When the Yankees won the Igawa sweepstakes I didn’t think much of his success in MLB, and definetly in the Big Apple. Here was a pitcher who had more problems than we could count with Hanshin.
Though, the Igawa failure is still fresh in the minds of Yankee fans. Though this is the Yankees, if a player fails here all they have to do is count their losses and move on with their big payroll. My opinion is we shouldn’t really put too much weight into Igawa, since he’s nowhere on the level as Darvish or Matsuzaka. I didn’t believe he would do much to start out with the Yankees. My belief, is Yankees fans will easily forget Igawa in a heartbeat if the Yankees somehow end up with Darvish.
Switching to Japanese baseball fans, you can understand the worry for them if NPB loses Darvish. Darvish is argueably the biggest name in NPB. To lose him would be real hard to recover from. If I were a Fighters fan, I worry too about losing the face of my team. The question, would then go to who replaces Darvish?
Though the astronomical posting fee that Darvish would net if he were posted would help me feel better about that. Though so far, Seibu hasn’t impressed me with their use of the Matsuzaka posting fee either. I be worried if a possible Darvish posting fee wouldn’t be solely going to making a better product on the field.
The answer to this is NPB needs to overhaul the pathetic player development model it has. Currently, the current farm system, doesn’t provide the resources neccessary to develop the future stars of tomorrow and neither does the draft, which is very short compared to the MLB draft.
As NPB teams only have one farm team to develop players is clearly unfit to further player development and in my opinion actually hampers what a team can do in the Draft. Like Valentine has been saying, NPB needs to add more minor league levels and it wouldn’t hurt to add more games to the minor league season either to further development of catchers and pitchers. With more minor league levels, it becomes easier to find potential diamonds in the rough.
What does this all mean? Let’s go back to what Darvish said, NPB has to be creative in keeping it’s popularity. Besides a few teams, there’s a big problem with doing anything creative in NPB. Though let me clear, players leaving to the majors isn’t killing NPB.
It’s not only the Yankees. Like I said earlier, MLB are besides themselves over Darvish’s talent already and are going to pay any amount of money necessary in order to sign him.
Of course, there’s plenty of teams besides the Yankees. The Cubs, Dodgers, Mets, Angels, Red Sox, Rangers, and Mariners all make sense to me. Then of course, if Boston gets involved with the posting, the figure could go through the roof.
Something tells me that if it becomes known one of those teams are interested in Darvish then the price could jump over $100M in a hurry. As for what Darvish would make annually in MLB, I like to see what Santana, Bedard, and Sabathia would make if they enter the open market. I think we’ll then get a better clue of how high Darvish could make annually. So far it looks like all of 3 of those pitchers I mentioned look to make a big payday on the open market, which bodes well for Darvish if he is MLB by age 25-26.
My belief is he’ll eventually ask to be posted sooner or later, probably after he accomplishes all he can in NPB.
17 A.S. // Jan 3, 2008 at 11:02 am
One thing I always come back to with Darvish, and I say this never having lived in Japan and only having lived in Korea, is how much loyalty does he really feel to Japan? Like Stamf suggests…is he really willing to make less than 2 mil (about 13 mil less per year) so he can do good by the NPB and Japan?
In the case of a full-blooded Japanese person (and again, I’m using my frame of reference from Korea) I can see how they might become so loyal (read: dellusional) that they might actually withstand something like that. But my guess is that Darvish has never been allowed, or considered himself to be a “true” Japanese person. It’s terrible, and one of the things I’ll eventually have to face when I have kids who will be half-Korean. But when people say “oh, he won’t leave Japan. He’s loyal to Japan. He hates America,” I just can’t believe his feelings are that strong.
18 A.S. // Jan 3, 2008 at 11:06 am
I agree with this point. I don’t think Darvish leaving the NPB would matter as much as people think. I think a lot of Japanese fans (well, probably baseball fans in general) go to games for the experience. And in Japan, moreso than other places, it’s an Experience. A party. I think it matters less who’s on the field. Ditto Korea.
19 westbaystars // Jan 3, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Stamf Says:
I guess I didn’t explain that right. The front page of Nikkan Sports for January 1, 2008 has several articles. One is about the completion of the New Yankee Stadium in 2009. Another is about the Japanese players the Yankees have pursued and whether or not they managed to acquire them. A third article is about the Japanese players who have gone to the Majors via the posting system. There’s a paragraph long note with table about the projected 2008 Yankee starting rotation. With the exception of the posting system article, all of these little articles surrounding the main one look like PR pieces for the Yankees.
Then there’s the sensational headlines about Darvish commanding more than Matsuzaka’s 60-oku yen posting fee and becoming a Yankee next off season. Sub-headlines support this by claiming that the Yankees are setting up a Tokyo branch office, and stating that Darvish will likely be heading to the Majors after his big test in the Olympics.
The article starts off talking about the Hillman Connection. Hillman-kantoku had apparently talked highly of Darvish since his rookie year of 2005 with Yankee scouts. [sarcasm] Therefore the Yankees will get him! [/sarcasm]
I tend to stop reading when articles say things like:
Which translates roughly to:
It’s complete speculation. Since there are not facts available to support the claim that Darvish will be a future Yankee, they make something up. The first paragraph above concludes that, after participating in the Olympics, wouldn’t Darvish want to test himself in the Majors? The second paragraph gets around his never stating such by suggesting that the Yankees might maybe go through Yu’s father to convince him to go.
Is it possible that the Yankees will make it worth everyone’s while to post Darvish after 2008? Sure. But the article itself is fiction based on what someone believes might maybe could possibly happen. It’s a hodge podge of speculation sprinkled with somewhat related facts (thus the postings article below it for support).
Here’s my speculation about what happened at Nikkan Sports on December 31.
Chief: We need a front page for the New Year.
Editor: Well, the Yankees are paying us to run a few PR pieces. But none of is about Matsui.
Chief: That won’t do. We need something big. A face that everyone will recognize.
Editor: How about Darvish? He’s been real popular this year.
Chief: Great! Let’s do it. Staff Reporter! Come here!
SR: Yes chief?
Chief: I need Darvish on the front page. And somehow tie it into these PR pieces from the Yankees.
SR: Yes sir!
And so the January 1, 2008 front page came to be.
20 Menji // Jan 3, 2008 at 8:56 pm
New Evil and Newer Version of Darth Vader- Redsox Owner John Henry - Give me Darvish Now”
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22 SoxAcumen // Jan 5, 2008 at 10:37 am
I doubt the Red Sox will enter the Yu Darvish negotiations and if they do only to up the price for the Yankees. While I have only seen Darvish highlights and do not want to get into a comparison of Dice-K v. Darvish, I believe the Sox are very happy with Dice-K. In all likelihood, the Sox are going to deal for Santana this off season and have a rotation of Josh Beckett, Johan Santana, Dice-k, and Clay Buchholz for the future. They really do not need Darvish. They will need to replace Jason Varitek, Manny Ramirez and Mike Lowell within the next 3 or so years. Makes no sense for the Sox to get Darvish unless its to keep him from NY.
IMO, LA, San Fran, Chicago or NY makes the most sense for Darvish. Doesn’t he date some Japanese singer or actress? Boston is not a big “entertainment” town. Also, all these comments about Darvish not coming to the MLB seems ridiculous. Just like the Euros in the 90s in the NBA and Yao Ming in the early part of this decade the best go play with the best. Darvish will be in the MLB very soon, most likely 09′, bc if he wants to be the best he must play the best. I am sure there are plenty of guys in the MLB who would rather be playing in the Carribean, but the best play in the US.
Plus, anyone really think the MLB teams are going to let a potential staff ace sit in Japan while they are paying Carlos Silva 4/$44 million?
No way. This guy is gone and if Nippon is smart they get $100+ million for their troubles, then use that money to get a few MLB FA’s to come and play a few years in Japan.
23 A.S. // Jan 5, 2008 at 5:03 pm
I tend to agree with most of what you’re saying, but the one thing I’d zero in on here is Dice K, who people compare Darvish to because they’re Japanese. In looking at how this story was linked around the blogosphere I was kind of surprised in how many times I ran into a “the next Dice-K” as the headline, usually accompanied by this sort of “uh-oh” tone in the piece. They aren’t all that similar outside their their nationality, but furthermore I can’t belive there are people out there that think Dice-K was a bust.
I would say, if there is a Darvish sweepstakes, the Sox will be right in the thick of it, if only because they have the money to do it.
PS I also like the point about guys wanting to play in the Carribean.
24 John Brooks // Jan 6, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I believe the Sox are very happy with Dice-K.
And they be more happier with Dice-K and Darvish. Plus what better way to strike back at the Yankees by outbidding them for Darvish. Also think how sick there rotation be if they could land Darvish and get Santana.
As said, Boston will be in this sweepstakes because they simply have the money to throw around.
They will need to replace Jason Varitek, Manny Ramirez and Mike Lowell within the next 3 or so years.
I fail to see how getting Darvish will prevent them from replacing them. I give Epstein and company the benefit of the doubt, after the success they have achieved. They seem to know what there doing. In the meantime, why not make your team even better by getting Darvish? It’s not like cash is lacking in Beantown.
IMO, LA, San Fran, Chicago or NY makes the most sense for Darvish.
This would be applicable if Darvish was a free agent, but he’s most likely to go to whichever team makes the winning bid. I seriously doubt Darvish be fazed by playing with the Red Sox. Also, along with the Big Apple what better place to challenge yourself at?
This guy is gone and if Nippon is smart they get $100+ million for their troubles, then use that money to get a few MLB FA’s to come and play a few years in Japan.
If I were Nippon Ham, I rather wouldn’t want them spending their money going after so many big name MLB FA’s, since many of them dont have their mind in it longterm when playing in Japan. I prefer to still going after players who are on the bubble between AAA and the majors or go after more players from Korea and Taiwan. As a team, I wouldn’t want a high priced MLB free agent just to say I have a MLB All-Star.
Next, as I mentioned with the Matsuzaka posting fee, I hope Nippon Ham can use the money wisely shall they post Darvish.
So far also the thing I don’t like with NPB is there’s nearly no player movement between teams. There’s very little big name trades between teams and players must wait 9 years before acquiring free agency. Unlike in the MLB offseason, there’s little to no sigificant player moves in the offseason in NPB.
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