With his former personal catcher and friend, Chris Gimenez, in the fold, it was only logical that there would be an uptick in chatter about the Cubs and Yu Darvish. But when that was paired with a report that the team was engaged in “active talks” with Darvish … we’ve all kinda been on edge since last night.
So … what’s the latest? Where’s the chatter? Well, it’s happening. It’s just happening behind hermetically sealed doors, it seems. This is not unusual for this particular front office, you’ll note. They are exceptional at holding the line on leaks, so the fact that we didn’t hear anything hard and fast today doesn’t necessarily mean things aren’t happening.
Sahadev Sharma was on The Score today, and he confirmed that there is indeed more momentum in the Yu Darvish talks right now, though that isn’t solely with respect to the Cubs. Overall, the process seems to be getting closer to an end, and Sharma suspects Darvish will probably be one of the next big dominoes to fall, with the Cubs high up on the list of possibilities.
Sharma’s colleague at The Athletic, Patrick Mooney, offered up what he’s been hearing this evening:
The #Cubs are setting their sights on Yu Darvish. https://t.co/s3zJwEMiT0
— Patrick Mooney (@PJ_Mooney) January 24, 2018
Because The Athletic is a premium service that you can and should pay for, I don’t want to give away too much in the way of the details that aren’t being put out there publicly. Suffice it to say, Mooney seems to be hearing a lot of the same as Sharma – both good and bad for the Cubs – and the momentum is there for more teams to be aggressive in their talks with Darvish (including Mystery Teams).
It may very well be the case that the overlap of Darvish and the Cubs is a chokepoint in the pitching market right now, with a number of teams waiting on Darvish and a number of pitchers waiting on the Cubs. If so, it would only be logical for that nexus to create a push toward Darvish being the next big free agent to sign – whether it’s with the Cubs or not.
Sharma cautioned that nothing on this front was imminent, but given that we’re already just a month out from the first Spring Training game, active discussions can become contract finalizations very quickly.
Speaking of one month away (and our Instagram, nudge nudge):