Yu Darvish Rumors
By Editorial Staff
The bidding on Yu Darvish is set to end tonight at 5:00 p.m. EST, and it’s still unclear who the favorite is to land the Japanese right-hander. Many around the game of baseball consider the Rangers to be the frontrunner in the Darvish sweepstakes. But several other clubs including the Nationals, Yankees, A’s, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Mariners have all been linked to Darvish as well. As we’re only hours away from the posting deadline, here’s the latest Yu Darvish rumors.
The only new information that’s come out regarding Darvish since we checked in on the situation Monday comes from Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports. According to Passan, how high the bids go for Yu “could influence whether Darvish plays in the major leagues next season”.
Farsad Darvish, Yu’s father, has already come out and shared his disdain for the current posting system. It is believed that if a team is required to post a very high bid to win the rights to negotiate with Darvish, the same team will have less money to put toward the 25-year-old’s contract.
According to a source, Darvish has said that if the posting fee comes in at a high number, “he will be far less likely to settle on a contract he believes fair”.
Of course, this could just be positioning on the part of Darvish to drive down bids and in turn increase his potential contract. While this could be the case, Passan notes that winning the Darvish bidding and failing to sign him “would be a massive disappointment to any team”.
Sources are also saying that Darvish would prefer to play on the West Coast. With this information in hand, another source told Passan that the Mariners could be “a darkhorse candidate”.
At this point, between the bidding and actual negotiations, many expect Darvish to cost anywhere from $80-100 million to sign. The Rangers have said they are unwilling to go north of $100 million, and many around the Yankees organization say their interest in Darvish is “lukewarm”. The Red Sox, A’s, Nationals and Blue Jays could all place bids on Darvish as well.
You can check out all of the available free agents by position below.