Rangers Win Darvish Bid, “Yu” Joke Not Made In Post Title

This, my dear readers, is an exclusive. By that, I mean I’m not going to make any absurd “Yu” puns. I might have even exhausted my Nippon Ham jokes on Twitter. I’m a little terrified this might be a legitimate post. I’ll forge ahead anyway.

The news broke late Monday night (time zone sensitive) that the Rangers won the bidding for Japanese superstar pitcher Yu Darvish. I think Jeff Passan was the first to get the news out…

Perhaps I should have waited a few more minutes before writing about the Rangers interest in Gio Gonzalez. It shouldn’t comes as a surprise though that the Rangers were the high bidders for Darvish after basically urging C.J. Wilson to sign with the dvision foe Angels. The Angels signed Wilson to a 5-year, $77 million deal to be their third or fourth starter. The Rangers are paying the Nippon Ham team $51.7 million for a 30-day window to negotiate with the 25-year-old Darvish.

Darvish has been terrific in Japan posting a 1.72 ERA in 1,024.1 innings over the past five years. Nolan Ryan and crew must think those skills are going to immediately translate to MLB. The Rangers will need Darvish to be nothing short of an ace…

No pressure, indeed. Let’s take a look at those pitchers just to get an idea of the pitcher the Rangers are hoping to sign…

Of course, this is just having some fun with numbers. I have no idea what to expect from Darvish. Keith Law had Darvish as his number three free agent so this is definitely the Rangers “big splash” of the offseason.

Angels fans can take solace in the fact that their rotation boasts two pitchers on the aforementioned “ace” list. Not to mention that Pujols character.