Waiting for Darvish and Other Bullets

Thanks for all of the kind words about the daughter’s tubes surgery this morning. As expected, all went well, and within an hour she was ready to get up and go crazy, like usual. There’s nothing quite like a trip to a children’s hospital for a minor procedure to remind you of how fortunate you are.

Well, that took an unintentionally somber turn. Hey, how about Yu Darvish?

  • In case you weren’t following the Darvish craziness last night in the comments here and on Twitter, let me give you the 60 second version: the Cubs, Rangers, Blue Jays, and Yankees – probably among other teams (like the Mariners) – bid on Darvish. No one yet knows for sure how much each team bid, but speculation has the first three bidding high, and the Yankees making only a “modest” bid. A Cubs source couldn’t share the team’s bid, but did say, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we won.” Yahoo’s Jeff Passan says at least one executive has heard that the Cubs won, but many, many other sources say they’ve heard the Jays or Rangers or even Mariners won. Darvish’s team has until 5pm ET on Tuesday to accept the high bid – which is reportedly “sky high” – but MLB could announce the winner as early as this morning. If there’s no official announcement, I’d expect leaks about the bid amounts slipping out over the next few days.
  • Two former Cubs – Bobby Scales and Micah Hoffpauir – are teammates of Darvish’s, and call him “a good dude.” Both have generally positive things to say about him (though, what would you expect?), and Hoffpauir believes Darvish could immediately be a great pitcher in MLB.
  • Carlos Zambrano finally returned to the mound in Venezuela last night after missing a few weeks with a jacked-up face. He threw four hitless innings, walking one and striking out one.
  • TCR relays an anecdote from a recent Kerry Wood radio appearance, during which Kerry said his top thrill as a Cub was his game-tying homer in Game 7 of the 2003 NLCS, not the 20K game. I can certainly understand the choice, but, for me, it would be hard for that memory not to be tainted by the ultimate – and, my memory tells me, inevitable – loss.
  • Barry Rozner writes a column mocking Cubs fans who believe the sky is falling after losing Aramis Ramirez. The problem? I don’t know any Cubs fans who are actually reacting like that. Ramirez has been gone from Cubs fans’ minds as a player on the team since October. It always makes for easy writing when you’re shredding imaginary people for their ridiculous beliefs. “Some Astros fans think the team is spending far too much money this offseason on top tier free agents. Let me tell you why they’re wrong….”
  • Speaking of Ramirez, the Brewers unveiled their offseason addition yesterday, and Ramirez said he knows he can’t replace Prince Fielder (and Ryan Braun for a possible 50 games), but he’ll try. Ramirez said it will be an adjustment in Milwaukee after playing most of his career in Chicago, but noted he’ll appreciate the availability of a roof when it’s cold in April.
  • One Hall of Fame voter is withholding a vote for Jeff Bagwell for a couple more years because (a) Bagwell played in the steroid era, (b) Bagwell got big and muscular, and (c) evidence of Bagwell juicing might come out at some point and the voter doesn’t want to have voted for a juicer. I’m as disappointed with the steroid era and what it did to “the numbers” as anyone, and you can’t know for certain that a guy didn’t juice, but that’s some seriously twisted logic right there.
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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