“How often do you get a chance to sign a 25-year-old free agent? It’s a pretty unique opportunity, so you tend to look at things a little differently when you look at somebody that age and the years of the
BY STEPHEN HAWKINS | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARLINGTON, Texas — Yu Darvish is coming to America to pitch, for the team he really wanted to join for his next challenge.
Japan’s best pitcher will play for the Texas Rangers, who scouted him for more than two years and then needed nearly every minute of a 30-day negotiating window before finalizing a $60 million, six-year contract Wednesday.
It is a total investment of more than $111 million with a record posting fee.
“The Rangers more so than any other team showed great, not only interest in scouting him, but a lot of personal time in developing a relationship with him,” said Arn Tellem, one of Darvish’s agents. “That personal connection was very significant to Yu and his family.’
There is also the much-anticipated boost the 25-year-old Darvish could provide to the Rangers, who have been to the last two World Series without winning the title.
“Yu is excited about helping a team that has not won achieve that goal,” Tellem said. “He’s really thrilled to be coming here. This is where he wanted to be.”
In addition to the salary, the Rangers will pay a posting fee of $51,703,411 to the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters of Japan’s Pacific League.
The last two numbers in that amount are the jersey numbers of Rangers President and Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan (34) and Darvish (11).
“When you talk about those kind of dollars, it’s high risk, but I also think he’s probably the most upside player I’ve ever seen come out of Japan,” Ryan said. “Having a free agent of that age, and with the fact that he’s been durable and has such feel for the baseball, I just think that he’s extremely unique.”
The Rangers’ window to exclusively negotiate with the pitcher began Dec. 19 when their bid was accepted by the Fighters.
The contract was finally completed a few minutes before the 4 p.m. CST deadline Wednesday, or Darvish would have stayed in Japan.
Rangers general manager Jon Daniels, who described the move as a “step-out deal” for the team, said negotiations were never contentious. He said there were good reasons for Texas to want a six-year deal.
“How often do you get a chance to sign a 25-year-old free agent? It’s a pretty unique opportunity, so you tend to look at things a little differently when you look at somebody that age and the years of the deal take him into his prime,” Daniels said. “And secondly, with the nature of the posting process and the size of the post, size of our bid, it made sense to amortize it out over a longer period.”
