The market for Yu Darvish remains mostly mysterious, but we can at least add one data point to the race to land him: dreams of a mere four-year deal are probably best left in your imagination.
Yu Darvish has at least one five-year offer on the table, according to a source, but nothing yet has enticed him to take the plunge. It's uncertain if the years or the $$ are the hangup — or both. #Cubs, #Twins, #Rangers, #Dodgers, #Brewers are all believed to be in the mix.
— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) January 22, 2018
To be quite sure, there’s no indication of what the dollar value is on that offer, and it’s at least conceivable that there could be a more attractive four-year offer out there when all is said and done. But it’s far more likely that the five-year offer is in that plausible AAV range (i.e., $20 to $25 million), and it’s also realistic to believe that will be the minimum price of poker.
Which team made the offer? Well, as we discussed earlier, it seems highly unlikely to have come from the Dodgers or Rangers (and it’s interesting that the Yankees aren’t even listed by Crasnick at all). The Brewers are listed, and are the only team known to have made a formal offer at this point, so maybe it’s them – the timing would certainly fit. Although the Brewers are still young and have warts for 2018, adding Darvish (together with their huge cache of prospects to make in-season moves) would definitely make me nervous.
Even at five years and $100 million, Darvish is an absolute steal. I suspect, even in this market, he’ll do better when the ink is dry. It’s not yet known whether the Cubs would be willing to go to five years on Darvish (there were earlier rumors that they were hoping for four, and reportedly would go only to three years on Alex Cobb), so we’ll see if this mystery offer came from them, or if it pushed the price out of their range.
Tick, tock and all that.
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