Yu Darvish to the Texas Rangers: Why This Move Makes No Sense

Some deals made over the course of an offseason seem totally logical. Some seem flat-out bad and some...some are total head-scratchers. 

File the $51.7 million posting fee ponied up by the Texas Rangers for touted Japanese import Yu Darvish as a total question mark. 

It makes sense that they'd sign Darvish—after all, they need another starting pitcher. The two-time American League champs lost C.J. Wilson to the Angels and are already planning to move Neftali Feliz into their starting rotation. Derek Holland appears to have a bright future, but Colby Lewis is not a pitcher the Rangers want to depend on. That leaves Matt Harrison, Alexi Ogando and Scott Feldman. Harrison has shown flashes of talent and had his best season last year. Feldman has not been as effective as the Rangers would have liked as a starter. 

So signing Darvish makes sense now. What doesn't make sense is letting Wilson go in the first place. Wilson who was coming off one good and one very good season in Texas and signed a five-year, $77.5 million deal with the division rival Los Angeles Angels. Darvish is going to cost the Rangers $51.7 million just to negotiate with. Then he's rumored to be seeking a contract similar to that signed by C.J. Wilson. The total of both expenses will easily top $100 million and possibly top $120 million. 

The last highly touted "can't miss" Japanese pitcher to land in American was Daisuke Matsuzaka who cost the Boston Red Sox a total of over $100 million to sign. Like Darvish, "Dice-K" arrived in the majors as the dominant pitcher in Japan. Since his arrival in the majors he's spent most of his time dominating the Red Sox disabled list or the loss column.

There's very little evidence to suggest Darvish will be any more effective pitching for Texas as C.J. Wilson was, and as an added bonus he's going to cost more a lot more, as well. 

Wilson, 31, is considerably older than Darvish, 25, but the workload for most of Wilson's career has been fairly minimal. He didn't even begin to start at the big league level until two years ago, and he's shown no signs of real fatigue in spite of a large workload pitching in one of baseball's most gruelling climates during the summer.

Darvish has never dealt with 100-plus-degree heat the likes of which he'll face in Texas, never dealt with pitching in a ballpark so built for offense, never faced the likes of Albert Pujols, Jose Bautista, Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano and Adrian Gonzalez. 

Darvish has also thrown far more innings as a starter than Wilson has. In his four years of starting in Japan he's already thrown 1,024 innings and 50 complete games. Wilson has in his entire career thrown 708 innings and three complete games. 

Yet this is the Rangers' decision. Rather than spend $140 million last year to get Cliff Lee, a pitcher who led them to the World Series and has won a Cy Young award in the majors, they'd rather save $20 million or so and get a pitcher who has never thrown even one inning in the majors. 

Rather than spending around $80 million to retain a pitcher who had already succeeded in Texas and who for his age had unusual durability due to a light workload in the early part of his career the Rangers would prefer to spend possibly an additional $40 million to get a pitcher who has thrown 50 complete games before the age of 25. 

This in spite of the fact that not one Japanese pitcher has proven to be as effective in the majors as they were playing professionally in Japan. 

The Rangers could have spent $80 million on Wilson and they'd still have approximately $40 million left to spend in other areas. Or they could keep that money and put it toward impending free-agent outfielder Josh Hamilton. 

It's not just that the amount of money the Rangers just spent on Yu Darvish is absurd, it's the circumstances that surround the decision that make it baffling. The Rangers didn't want to spend on Cliff Lee or C.J. Wilson, but they do want to spend on Yu Darvish? A head-scratcher is an understatement.

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