Obsessive Yu Darvish Watch: Rangers Now Involved? No Decision Before Christmas? (UPDATES)

After meeting with the Astros today, it sounds like Yu Darvish will also be meeting with his old team, the Texas Rangers.

Well … maybe. Take it away, conflicting reports:

Maybe things changed in those seven hours, maybe one of the two reports is flat wrong, or maybe there’s some play with the word “meeting.” In any case, I’ll presume for now that the Rangers are not totally out of this thing, even as it is extremely rare that a player returns to the team that traded him in the year before free agency.

UPDATE: It’s the one about playing with the word “meeting”:

UPDATE 2: And more than that, maybe the Rangers aren’t even holding out hope for a deal:

Earlier today, we discussed the Martin Perez injury and how that might lead the Rangers to explore the pitching market a bit more, but it would be a far leap from Martin Perez missing April and May to OMG-we-have-to-schedule-a-meeting-with-Darvish-NOWWWWWW. I’m thinking if the Rangers were interested before, they’re still interested now, and vice versa.

Meanwhile, Darvish himself has weighed in on the meeting process, and he may not be making a decision any time soon:

The article he shared is a rough read with Google Translate, and, even if I caveat the heck out of it, I’m not going to pretend to get much out of my “reading.” The Google Translate on Darvish’s tweet, however, seems a bit more clear: “It is not Honeymoon relationship at all and I will not decide by Christmas. It is flat to the last for all teams.”

It *seems* like Darvish is refuting the tone of the article, which was heavily focused on the Cubs (and may have even dubbed them the favorite), and which appears to indicate a decision is coming by Christmas. Apparently, the timing, and the exclusive focus on the Cubs, are not correct. With Christmas just six days away, a decision before then was not necessarily expected at this point anyway.

If anyone out there is fluent in Japanese, we’d be very happy to hear your read.

The last two posts on Darvish are here and here, in case you missed any of it today and you want to do more obsessing.

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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