Yu Darvish Grades: Is He Living Up to His Contract Early On?

Yu Darvish signing with the Texas Rangers was easily one of the biggest stories of the offseason.  From the bidding process to now, all eyes have been on him.  With the Rangers investing over $100 million on him, most want to know if he'll live up to his contract.  

It's Spring Training.  The team should not be based on wins and losses.  Every team just wants to get out of Spring Training healthy.  

Any team who can play baseball for a month and keep their core healthy should consider themselves lucky.  Guys try new things in the spring.  They work on things, see what works, what doesn't and prepare themselves for the marathon season ahead.  

The spring isn't an indicator of how a player or team will fair in the regular season.  There are a couple of things that we can learn from players in the spring.  

Darvish has had three starts up to this point.  As we grade his starts up to this point, hopefully we can pick up on some things to look forward to for the rest of this season.  

First Spring Start

2 innings pitched, 0 walks, 3 strikeouts, 2 doubles, 0 runs

36 pitches, 26 strikes

Darvish impressed with his first start of the spring.  He kept the ball over the plate, missed bats and showed a number of pitches.  Some accounts differ but most say Darvish threw six different pitches; a four-seam fastball, a two-seam fastball, a curve, a slider, a cutter, a splitter and a straight change.  

His fastball hit as high as 95 mph and one loopy curveball touched around 67.  

Of the eight batters that Darvish faced, seven started out at 0-1.  

He made an impressive defensive play where he stabbed a one-hopper and threw out the runner trying to sneak home from third.

Overall, it was a solid start.  The Will Venable double (by most accounts) would have been a home run in a number of ballparks, but it wasn't that day.  Darvish showed a little bit of what he has in his arsenal and showed he can keep the ball down in the zone.  

Scouts and players alike were impressed.  Orlando Hudson (who hustled out one of the doubles allowed) said "...I think he'll do a hell of a job. He's got seven pitches to embarrass you with. He's like Nintendo up there." 

Grade: A

Second Spring Start

3 innings pitched, 3 strikeouts, 4 walks, 3 hits, 2 runs

61 pitches, 29 strikes

Yu struggled with his command in his second start.  It may be the only time all year that he throws more balls than strikes.  He admitted afterwards that he was not feeling his best physically.  Darvish did show that he could get through adversity.

Yorvit Torrealba threw out two would-be base-stealers, but give some of the credit to Yu for keeping his stride short and changing up his timing.  He'll be a tough pitcher to steal off of.  

The two runs scored were scored off of a ground ball.  He kept the ball down and gave the infield a chance to turn the ball into an out, instead of giving up a solid line-drive hit.  

He works off of his fastball, like many pitchers.  He wasn't feeling it that day and used his wide array of breaking balls to fight through some jams with minimal damage.

Grade: B-

Third Spring Start

4 innings pitched, 4 strikeouts, 4 walks, 1 run

70 pitches, 39 strikes

Yu struggled again with his command, but when he didn't he dazzled batters.  

His fastball was from 93-96 and his breaking balls were again working.  Darvish again showed he can get out of jams with a ground-ball double play to get out of the fourth.  Even the run that scored was scored on a ground ball that got through.

Darvish said, "Every spring, I'm usually not sharp. I'm more concerned with how my body feels during the game. That part's not where I need to be yet." 

Yu's final pitch of the outing was a two-seamer that broke a bat.  

Grade: B+

Again, this is Spring Training.  Everyone is trying new things.  Darvish is just trying to stay in shape physically and get used to the different nuances of Major League Baseball.  

Spring Training may be one of the most over-analyzed parts of the "talking" sport.  We shouldn't crown Yu the American League Cy Young winner and we can't call him a bust.  

The Rangers don't need Yu to go 25-0 this year with a 1.00 ERA.  They need him to be a solid starter who they can win games and eat up innings.  If this spring is any indication of how he'll do this year, then I'll go ahead and guess that he'll lived up to his contract, although we won't know the answer to that question for another six years.