{"id":12478,"date":"2011-12-21T07:01:35","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T07:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=12478"},"modified":"2011-12-28T21:51:52","modified_gmt":"2011-12-28T21:51:52","slug":"rangers-raise-the-stakes-with-51-7m-bid-for-darvish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=12478","title":{"rendered":"Rangers raise the stakes again with $51.7m bid for Darvish"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>After all the rumours, it was Texas, rather than Toronto, who were the highest bidder for Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Toronto can turn their attention to other targets, possibly swinging a trade for a pitcher like Gio Gonzalez, or maybe even setting up a Jose Bautista-Prince Fielder double act in their batting lineup.<\/p>\n

As for Texas, the fun has only just begun.\u00c2\u00a0 Now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on to the tricky process of negotiating a contract.<\/p>\n

The spectre of Daisuke Matsuzaka has never been far away in the Darvish story.\u00c2\u00a0 Matsuzaka\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decidedly mixed transition to North America has made some question whether Darvish\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s star will shine so brightly in MLB as it has in Japan.\u00c2\u00a0 The Boston Red Sox\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s $51,111,111 bid doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look like money well spent in retrospect, to say the very least.<\/p>\n

When it came to posting a bid for Darvish, there were several different approaches that a team could take. They could have shied away from such a vast sum as a risky investment, they could have believed that he is a superior talent to Matsuzaka and therefore potentially worth a similar amount, or believed that he is a superior talent but that $51.1m was paying well over the odds and therefore settled on a significant but lesser figure.<\/p>\n

The Rangers went for the middle position of those three, bidding $51.7m.\u00c2\u00a0 The current conversion rate has that at approximately \u00c2\u00a333.1m, intriguingly close to the \u00c2\u00a335m that Liverpool speculated on the similarly risky (in different ways) Andy Carroll.\u00c2\u00a0 Put that down as reason number two why the Red Sox\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s owners \u00e2\u20ac\u201c also Liverpool\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s owners, of course \u00e2\u20ac\u201c steered clear of dishing out a similar sum this time around.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Are the Rangers wise to have entered such a substantial bid?\u00c2\u00a0 We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll need to see out the life of Darvish\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s contract (if he signs one) before we have a definitive answer; however currently you can understand why Texas opted for that amount.<\/p>\n

For a team that really wanted Darvish, the problem with believing that Matsuzaka was overpriced was that, at some level, the Matsuzaka bid had<\/strong> set the market price for a premium Japanese pitcher.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody could have adjusted downwards in light of Matsuzaka\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Major League performances, but in a blind posting process it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very difficult to gauge this.<\/p>\n

The Rangers have scouted Darvish extensively, have money to spend and clearly wanted to make a big push to sign him.\u00c2\u00a0 Consequently it would have been difficult for them to have not entered a bid at or just above the Matsuzaka mark.\u00c2\u00a0 Had they gone for a lesser bid ($40m, say) and lost out to a bid of $51m, they would have kicked themselves because effectively they would have lost out on a prime target due to a bad guess (that someone else wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t use Matsuzaka\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s posting fee as the benchmark).\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Any blind bid is a guess to some degree, but if they are backing Darvish as a better player than Matsuzaka – which they clearly are \u00e2\u20ac\u201c then as they could afford to spend $51m+ they had to go in at that level to fend off the possibility of another team meeting that price.\u00c2\u00a0 They could still have been out-bid; however at least their submission would have been as educated a guess as they could have hoped to make.<\/p>\n

The reports coming out of Toronto on Tuesday that the Blue Jays’ bid exceeded $50m<\/a> show that such an educated guess was definitely the correct approach for Texas to take.<\/p>\n

Even though the Rangers already have a strong group of pitchers, their pursuit of Darvish shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be seen as a surprise.\u00c2\u00a0 Any team should be looking to bring in the best talent they can acquire when the opportunity presents itself, particularly if you are already a two-time reigning American League champion that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have glaring holes in their roster.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the Rangers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 potential pile of pitching, the first base bonanza in St. Louis (Albert Pujols, Mark Trumbo and Kendrys Morales) or the prospect pair in San Diego (Anthony Rizzo and the newly-acquired Yonder Alonso), having too much talent is never really a problem.\u00c2\u00a0 A surplus of talent in one spot can be traded for a good player or two for elsewhere, while an injury can quickly make a surplus seem less of a luxury and more of a lifeline.<\/p>\n

Before the Rangers reach that stage \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the early talk has them potentially trading Colby Lewis to make a space in the rotation \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they have to actually sign Darvish.\u00c2\u00a0 Posting the highest bid only gains them exclusive rights to attempt to reach an agreement with the pitcher.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

You would have to expect a deal to be concluded.\u00c2\u00a0 Both sides have every reason to come to an agreement and they should have a fair idea of the likely parameters of a contract: again using the Matsuzaka mark, in this case a six-year\/$52m contract, as a starting point. It is still likely to take the majority of the thirty-day period to reach an agreement, though, as both parties will attempt to use the impending deadline as leverage to finalize aspects of the contract.<\/p>\n

If Darvish does indeed sign for the Rangers, the AL West and Wild Card races will become even more intense, while baseball fans generally will be able to enjoy watching this highly-touted Japanese star taking on MLB batters.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, spare a thought for the Houston Astros, who will be joining the free-spending Angels and Rangers in the AL West in 2013.\u00c2\u00a0 New owner Jim Crane basically had no choice but to move his team from the NL Central, but the subsequent $70m compensation payment he received on his original purchase price of $680m is rapidly beginning to look like small beer compared to the sums being bandied about by two of his soon-to-be division rivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After all the rumours, it was Texas, rather than Toronto, who were the highest bidder for Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553,126,473],"class_list":["post-12478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2","tag-texas-rangers","tag-yu-darvish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12478"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12497,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12478\/revisions\/12497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}