Now that Mark Buehrle is off the market and C.J. Wilson appears to be close to a new deal, there isn’t a ton of top-level talent on the free-agent market in the starting-pitching department.
Enter Japan’s Yu Darvish. Fox Sports has it that the righty will be posted Thursday and the New York Yankees, Texas Rangers, and Toronto Blue Jays are expected to place bids.
”I have decided to use the posting system,” Darvish wrote on his blog Thursday, according to Fox. ”I wanted to tell my fans directly, so that is why I am posting this on my blog.”
When Darvish gets posted, teams have four days to get sealed bids to his current team, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, Fox notes. The winner gets a 30-day window to negotiate a deal with the 25-year-old Darvish, who went 18-6 with a 1.44 ERA last season while striking out 276 in 232 innings.
“Darvish’s posting fee could exceed the Boston Red Sox’s winning $ 51 million bid for Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Darvish’s contract also could be worth more than Matsuzaka’s six-year, $ 52 million deal,” Fox reports.
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