Last month we heard reports that Japanese ace Yu Darvish could be posted this winter (i.e. his current club, Nippon Ham, could make him available to major league teams for a price). Now Patrick Newman of the excellent NPB Tracker passes along word that the Diamondbacks are willing to go as high as $80 million for Darvish.
Some portion of that would probably be the posting fee and some portion of it the actual contract, what with the previous record posting fee being $51.1 million for Daisuke Matsuzaka. With his contract added in, Matsuzaka ended up costing the Sox over $100 million. Figuring that (a) the Diamondbacks aren’t likely to spend like the Sox; and (b) Dice-K ended up being, you know, not worth $100 million, you’d have to assume that the $80 million figure would cover it all.
As for Darvish the pitcher: he’s been worked hard during his professional career. There are some that categorize him as a Dice-K style nibbler. Not sure if that’s just stereotyping -- a Japanese pitcher being a “nibbler” is becoming like a white guy being a “possession receiver” in its cliche value -- but the point is that not everyone is as excited about Darvish today as they were a couple of years ago.
But, hey: nibbler or not, overpriced or not, he would almost certainly constitute an improvement for the Diamondbacks as they try to build their team around starting pitching.