With the two major names of the offseason thus far now settled into new homes, will someone finally pay attention to Yu Darvish?
This offseason, Yu Darvish has been the top ranked player in nearly every ranking of available free agents. Keith Law, MLB Trade Rumors, MLB.com, USA Today, and the Washington Post, among others, all had Yu Darvish as the top-ranked free agent available.
The unique situation of a possible two-way star in Shohei Ohtani and putting a reigning MVP on the trade market in Giancarlo Stanton were certain to get headlines, sure, but Darvish took a back seat in press to guys like Alex Cobb or Lance Lynn, certainly less-upside arms in this year’s market than Darvish. That’s more than just a little odd.
Why is Darvish market getting ignored?
Darvish is one of likely 4-5 players on the entire free agent market who will receive more than a 4 year deal. That does eliminate a number of teams from the market for Darvish.
One of the things that has been a push against Darvish this offseason in the rare press he has received is his postseason performance, except that those narratives seem to miss the point completely. While Darvish did struggle in 2 World Series starts, he made two excellent starts to get the Dodgers to that point, throwing 11 1/3 innings, allowing 2 runs on 8 hits and a walk, striking out 14.
The other flag that many list is Darvish’s Tommy John surgery that cost him a chunk of 2014 and 2016 and all of 2015. However, not only is Darvish back to pre-surgery velocity, he’s actually surpassed it, with a 94.2 MPH average fastball in 2017 versus a high of 92.9 before his Tommy John.
Most of his other pitches were similar to previous velocity outside of his change up. His change may only be used in 2% of pitches, but he threw each of those 88.1 MPH in 2017. His previous career high was 86.8 MPH. Darvish is not just back, but he’s actually throwing harder with his slider and cutter grading as well as before his surgery.
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Darvish’s market
While it’s gone under the radar, there is still heavy interest in Darvish. One of the surprising teams that is heavily into Darvish is the Minnesota Twins, a team that will have a significant amount of available funds in their payroll over the next few years before core players like Miguel Sano, Byron Buxton, and Jose Berrios reach the expensive years of arbitration.
Other teams that have been tied to Darvish including six teams that have been confirmed to have met with Darvish. MLB Trade Rumors profiled Darvish recently, and mentioned a few of the destinations.
One mentioned part of their piece that is gaining some ground is the willingness of the Houston Astros to make a financial splash this winter as they were in late on the Giancarlo Stanton rumors, and their core of their World Series champion team doesn’t see significant financial investment (in 2020, only two players currently have contracts, though many of the team’s stars – Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, George Springer – will be in arbitration and likely making significant money).
While he’s not gotten the spotlight he deserved until now, with the winter meetings opening this coming week, Yu Darvish should be on the tip of many tongues.