Yu Darvish: Like Dice-K, only more so
Posted on May 13th, 2008 – 1:00 PMBy Michael Rand
ESPN.com, showcasing the cover story from The Magazine, has an interesting though somewhat herky-jerky story about Yu Darvish, the new Japanese phenom pitcher who could eventually e better — and richer — than Dice-K if he heads to the Major Leagues at some point. It takes quite a while to get to the interesting part — will he ever come here, and how much will it cost — though in Jim Caple’s defense the interview with Yu was granted on the condition that he would not be asked about coming to America. But the money paragraph, which comes long after a traipse around the Nippon Ham Fighters name and Yu’s nude picture in a Japanese magazine, is this:
Most everyone says if Darvish is posted, the bidding will easily top the $50 million the Seibu Lions received in exchange for the rights to Dice-K. After that, Johnson says, “The sky is the limit as to where the big-money teams would go.” Given the usual escalation in baseball contracts, it isn’t crazy to think the negotiating fee could go to $75 million.
Sorry, but this has to stop. $75 million just to negotiate is something only a handful of teams (or maybe just two teams) can afford. If he’s as good as advertised, he could get 5 years for $100 million on top of that fee. We’re not sure what a better system for bringing in Japanese and other foreign players would be, but this is not the solution.
14 Responses to "Yu Darvish: Like Dice-K, only more so"
General manager Most Extreme Elimination Challenge?
Get in the ring with Fighty, girls. Last one standing gets the rights.
Save Fighty!
The potential for signs in opposition crowds is enormous. “Yuck Fu,” for one.
ESPN will undoubtedly use “Whirling Darvish” at some point…
In fact, I don’t know why they didn’t use it for this headline…
I can see it now: opening day 2010, Yu Darvish starting on the mound for the Twins. And also playing center, right, short and first.
Why don’t these guys go through a draft process? I hate baseball for this reason. You have to give money to a team just to talk about thinking about signing a player. Otherwise you can go down to Latin America and sign a 14 year old that you say is 16 for way too much money. Why aren’t all players drafted like in other sports? Is there any other team sport where a player doesn’t potentially have the chance to be drafted.
The US could just annex Japan and then make Japanese players be in the US Draft, but they will have to wait until we’re finished with Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Lebanon, Russia, and Myanmar. They will be ahead of all of Africa and the Netherlands.
LQ
I sure hope Canada is in there somewhere between Russia and Myanmar. Those damn Canucks still owe us for taking their Canadian quarters for all those years.
I think the reason teams have to pay these fees instead of drafting the guys is because they are already under contract by a team in Japan. They’re basically buying the contract out from the Japanese team.
I also don’t think they can enter the draft because they’ve played professionally in Japan.
What’s the big deal? He’s got a family to feed. You know how much Sushi costs in the United States?
In the article, it says that a player has to play for 9 years before they’re eligible for free agency, or else the Japanese team can sell them before that 9 years is up. So if they were willing to wait 9 years, they’d be a free agent and could just start negotiating with any team. But because the Japanese team has the rights to them already, they can do whatever they want, including forcing a fee for negotiation.
There is also talk of some Japanese players trying to get into the US system right out of high school, without signing a pro contract in Japan. Then they could (probably?) just be drafted.
If I were the Twins I would Post a $200 million bid with no intention of signing the player. The player ends up back in Japan and no other teams in MLB have what is suppose to be a good pitcher. Seems simple enough for this idiot.
Seems simple enough for this idiot.
I think this is the guiding principle for most of the people here…
