OT: Rangers ink Darvish: 6 years, $60M

[fredericklove]

Good for the Rangers, and their fans. Great commitment to winning by their ownership. Next up, Prince.

Love being a Jays fan.

[Al_Oliver]

hopefully AA can "take" one of Daniels' extra starters now...

[Michael Bradley]

Wilson would've come cheaper and would be a better bet to do good job even if hes on the wrong side of 30. Rangers are actually worse off than last year unless they are expecting another .900+ OPS season from Napoli.

We at least know CJ Wilson can pitch very successfully in that stadium against MLB competition. We can't say the same for Yu Darvish. I'd be surprised if he did as well as Wilson did there for the past two years.

Agreed. Wilson had a 4.6 and 5.9 WAR the last two seasons and he did it pitching in a home ballpark that greatly favors hitters. Maybe the Rangers feel Darvish over the next six years will outpitch the older Wilson over that same span, and maybe they will be proven correct, but to spend more on a lottery ticket (which Darvish basically is) than it would have taken to re-sign a sure thing doesn't make any sense to me.

It will be interesting to see how Darvish does in the Majors. Like I said during the Twitter frenzy, if Darvish pans out, then he will be the exception as far as Japanese starters go, not the norm. The Rangers just took a huge risk, but hey, if they have the money then why not spend it?

[s_other]

Much less than what experts expected Darvish to go for. Makes me even more frustrated. The $110 million Darvish cost Texas over six years would've paid for itself in two with Toronto with our Asian population, increase in attendance, and extra popularity in Japan. There's not too many players I would support spending over $100 million on, but Darvish made too much sense to lose him to Texas.

[Sifu]

Much less than what experts expected Darvish to go for. Makes me even more frustrated. The $110 million Darvish cost Texas over six years would've paid for itself in two with Toronto with our Asian population, increase in attendance, and extra popularity in Japan. There's not too many players I would support spending over $100 million on, but Darvish made too much sense to lose him to Texas.

While I agree with much of your comment, why do you think Toronto's large asian population would support Darvish? That's a misconception. Darvish is japanese. And if you know anything about asian history, you'll know that both koreans and chinese hate the japanese with a passion.

[s_other]

I think it's obvious a common hatred of the Yankees will take precedence over hundreds of years of racial loathing.

[torontoaces04]

Don't worry guys, I'm sure AA has something up his sleeve! I say he "goes for it" and signs Brad Mills....eerrrrr I mean Jeff Francis and his 83MPH fast-ball to a 1yr- 4.5 million dollar deal. Then we're right back in it!!!!

[leafsfan89]

If I'm a Rangers fan, anything less than a championship is cause for frusturation, anger, and dissapointment. This team has made the finals back to back years. I wouldn't expect Darvish to bring the championship by himself but he will play a huge role! If they dont win the championship, or even not make the finals, it would be a step back for them progress wise (unless they come back to win in consecutive years from 2013 or something like that). Also, another trip to the finals to just get sent back home in 2012 would be edging them closer to be the modern day Buffalo Bills? Unless a teams already been in that situation already?

As a baseball fan, I don't see them making it/winning it. The road to the final would be harder than ever. If they do, the championship would taste that much sweeter. (1) they would FINALLY win the world series after 2 failed attempts already. (2) Winning the world series would technically mean they edged out the Yankees, Red Sox, and most importantly, a division rival who also aims at winning it all, Angels. I think Rangers fans want this especially more now since the signings of Pujols, and Wilson by the Angels.

As a Jays fan, I just feel confused, as to what the organization is going to possibly do to not only get this team back to their world series winning ways, but just get in the playoffs (or even a one day wildcard playoff would make my day at this point). This has been iterated over and over on this board im sure, but i dont see the jays being able to compete for that wildcard even a bit. (Unless we get Fielder). Yankees, Rangers, Red Sox, Angels, two these teams will almost certainly be the wild card winners. Rays could be added to the list.

[Raps in 4]

Good for the Rangers, and their fans. Great commitment to winning by their ownership. Next up, Prince.

Love being a Jays fan.

[notic519]

Wilson would've come cheaper and would be a better bet to do good job even if hes on the wrong side of 30. Rangers are actually worse off than last year unless they are expecting another .900+ OPS season from Napoli.

I understand your point about a proven commodity versus someone who has never pitched a major league game but I think you have to look at it this way. 5 years (77 mil) for a 31 year old pitcher vs 6 (60 mil) years for a 25 year old pitcher that has all the tools to be an effective starter. I would much rather have Darvish at that price tag than Wilson.

I am not really taking his posting fee into consideration since most of it (if not all) should be made back up over the 6 years with advertising revenue.

Watching Darvish at the World Baseball Classic you know he isn't going to be a bust. He has all the tools and demeanor to be a very good pitcher.

The only reason I can see that some of you posters that say you can't pay that much for an unproven talent is because you either work for Rogers or are trying to make yourself feel better by talking yourself into the idea that it was a bad signing.

Randle, since I know your stance on non MLB players, I'm assuming when the next big cuban defector/latin american/japanese player comes over that you aren't going to want to sign them to big bucks because they are "unproven". I'm just curious how you draw the line between good signing and too much. Adeiny contract is 4 years 10 mil and he still hasn't played a game in the majors yet. You were against that signing or no?

[Lateral Quicks]

I'm really curious as to how much extra revenue Darvish will bring in. Unlike Ichiro, Darvish will only play once every five days. Will people in Japan tune in to the Rangers on the four days between Darvish's starts? I doubt it. I don't think the Japanese advertising dollars will be as high as many would expect.

All that said, I still would have liked to see him on the Jays. Still not the end of the world though...

[satyr9]

There've also been some conflicting reports about what happens to a lot of that revenue. I've seen it several times where any extra TV money goes into the general fund, so whether he plays on your team or not doesn't help at all.

Also, I think it was a Yankees source that said Matsui made them like 3m in extra ads inside the stadium (can't remember if that was annually or just one year or the entire time or what though, which obviously makes a big difference). Conversely, there were reports that one year of DiceK made the Red Sox like 6 million or something like that. Most likely, those reports are just informed guesses by people who likewise don't actually know the specifics (if you know the specifics you're not telling). This is an area where the fans just don't and can't know what we're talking about. Maybe they make the entire posting fee back, maybe half, maybe a quarter, there's no way to say with any certainty.

[Avenger]

There've also been some conflicting reports about what happens to a lot of that revenue. I've seen it several times where any extra TV money goes into the general fund, so whether he plays on your team or not doesn't help at all.

Also, I think it was a Yankees source that said Matsui made them like 3m in extra ads inside the stadium (can't remember if that was annually or just one year or the entire time or what though, which obviously makes a big difference). Conversely, there were reports that one year of DiceK made the Red Sox like 6 million or something like that. Most likely, those reports are just informed guesses by people who likewise don't actually know the specifics (if you know the specifics you're not telling). This is an area where the fans just don't and can't know what we're talking about. Maybe they make the entire posting fee back, maybe half, maybe a quarter, there's no way to say with any certainty.

that is correct, if Darvish manages to raise the value of Japanese TV contracts the Rangers will get the same share as the Blue Jays or any other team and the same goes for merchandise obviously. From what i understand, the only meaningful increase in revenue will come from those advertising boards behind homeplate and even that is somewhat questionable because the Rangers probably already have contracts with American advertisers and any Japanese company interested in advertising there has to outbid them.

The weird thing is Darvish will help raise the value of those behind the plate advertising boards in opposing ballparks too.
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/r ... d_dollars/

It feels like we've been fooled by people who said that the team winning the Darvish bid will easily make back the posting fee and i don't think the Rangers are counting on that either. They probably believe that Darvish will be a bonafide ace and worthy of a 120 million dollar contract without the extra possible revenue.

[xAIRNESSx]

Yu's a pothead!

Rangers right-hander Yu Darvish caused a bit of a commotion on Friday as he made his first official appearance as a member of the team in the United States.

Fresh off a long flight from Japan, Darvish raised more than a few eyebrows by wearing a t-shirt that appeared to have a marijuana leaf on it.

http://baseball.realgm.com/src_wiretap_ ... attention/