Yu Darvish to the Rangers: 5 Reasons the Red Sox Avoided Darvish

Well the latest, greatest "can't miss, surefire, No. 1 ace" from Japan is apparently on his way to Major League Baseball. 

Yu Darvish, a 25-year-old string bean of a man is coming to America, and not just America but Texas. He arrives in Texas with Texas-sized expectations too.

His posting price (that's the price the Rangers have to pay just for the option to exclusively negotiate a contract with Darvish) was a record $51.7 million. That of course eclipses the previous posting price record of $51.1 million that the Red Sox set when they successfully bid on Daisuke Matsuzaka in November of 2006.

Now the Rangers will have to negotiate an actual contract with Darvish. The initial reports are that a deal with Darvish could run well into the $70-$80 million range . 

That's a ton of money for a guy without one pitch of major league experience on his resume. No one knows more about the risks of signing the next big thing from Japan more than Red Sox fans. 

Sox fans are probably breathing a collective sigh of relief today knowing that some other team is investing so heavily in Darvish. There are several reasons for this.

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Dice-K

This is clearly the most obvious and glaring reason for the Red Sox to have largely sat on the sidelines as Darvish-mania engulfed the free-agent offseason. 

The Red Sox have "been there, done that." It was just over five years ago that the Red Sox were the big "winners" of the Dice-K posting frenzy. For $51.1 million the Red Sox got the privilege of exclusive negotiating rights with Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Of course Darvish comes armed with a dazzling array of pitches. Dice-K didn't have that type of resume—wait, yes he did. 

"

"Matsuzaka can attack hitters from dizzying angles, with multiple pitch sequences. He throws a fastball in the low- to mid-90s (topping out at 97), a slider, a changeup, a curveball, a forkball, a two-seam fastball and a splitter (some say it's a shuuto, a nasty sinker that late-breaks down and in on righthanded hitters)." - ESPN.com 11/22/06

"

Yes that's the type of hype that every single Red Sox fan has heard before. It gets you excited. After all, with all those pitches, there's no way major league hitters will be able to make consistent contact. Unless of course they can. Or unless of course there are issues with walks. 

In the end Dice-K wasn't "can't miss" at all. He was "can't hit" as in "Dice-K can't hit his spots consistently enough to avoid high walk totals. In the three seasons in which Dice-K was healthy enough to eclipse 100 innings pitched, his walk totals have been 80, 94 (led the entire American League) and 74. 

Workload

Last season around this time there was no Yu Darvish frenzy. He was just a blip on the radar of the future. 

Last year the name on everyone's lips was starting pitcher Cliff Lee. 

Lee, who was coming off a season in which he was dealt from the last place Seattle Mariners to the first place Texas Rangers, was the guy everyone wanted. He led Texas into the playoffs and was dominant in the postseason

He led the Rangers past the Rays in the ALDS and then dominated the Yankees in the ALCS. His World Series performance was not nearly as impressive but Lee had made a statement. 

Now he wanted to get paid. 

Lee initially wanted a seven-year deal. He never got that from anyone and in the end he settled for a lucrative five-year contract from Philadelphia worth $137.5 million. 

The reason Lee never got the lengthy seven-year deal he wanted was a sound one. Teams didn't want to invest big money and a lot of time in a 32-year-old pitcher who had a heavy workload and a propensity to work deep into games as well as throw complete games.

So when Yu Darvish came onto the market it's likely that a couple of numbers jumped out at Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington.

Darvish at the age of 25 and through just five seasons of professional baseball (none of which have been against Major League hitters), has thrown 50 complete games and 1,024.1 innings.

Through 10 seasons of professional baseball Lee has thrown 26 complete games and 1,641.2 innings.

There are only two options for the Rangers in this situation. They can continue to let Darvish throw in the manner he's used to, which even for someone like myself who does not subscribe to the rigid pitch count philosophy espoused by many big league clubs, seems fairly unsustainable. Or the Rangers can alter Darvish's workload, which has numerous risks as well. 

Either way, Darvish is unlikely to find pitching for the Rangers or anywhere in Major League Baseball all that similar to pitching in Japan.  

Money

Even if the Red Sox were convinced that Darvish would be an "ace," they still may have opted to not aggressively take part in the posting process.

The Red Sox already have one of baseball's highest payrolls and it wasn't about to get dramatically smaller heading into 2012.

Gone are J.D. Drew and Jonathan Papelbon. David Ortiz will be back and in all likelihood with a slight raise. Tim Wakefield and Jason Varitek may also be gone as well.

Bringing in Darvish at over $100 million just wasn't an option. Not with the looming free agency of American League MVP Jacoby Ellsbury, not with Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez both getting over $20 million for the upcoming seasons.

Certainly not with guys like John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka who are both making big bucks and will miss significant time in 2012. Lackey is going to miss the entire season.

Sure if the Red Sox felt that Darvish was Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander or Roy Halladay, they'd have figured out a way to get the cash together. Clearly they don't believe that's the case.   

Bobby Valentine

In case you haven't heard, the Boston Red Sox have a new manager. His name is Bobby Valentine. A soft spoken and humble man, Valentine is known for his restraint. He rarely expresses his opinion and when he does, he does so with an almost uncomfortable humility. 

Actually that's not at all Bobby Valentine. Valentine is known as a guy who is completely at ease expressing his opinion. He's not ashamed of them and when it comes to a subject in which he's well versed such as baseball, he will be downright cocky about his thoughts.

There's actually an arena of professional baseball that Valentine truly does have a unique and valuable perspective on. Professional Japanese Baseball.

That's because Bobby Valentine has spent six season managing a Japanese professional baseball team. He even won the Japanese equivalent of the World Series in 2005.

He's seen Darvish and other pitchers pitch in Japan as well. He's also observed countless amounts of Major League Baseball. He's not infallible, but of all current major league managers and executives, Valentine probably possesses as much if not more of an understanding of the differences between American and Japanese professional baseball.

It's worth noting at this time that there is little evidence to suggest that the Red Sox pursued Darvish with anything more than a low-ball bid. There could be plenty of reasons for that but I'd suspect that if Valentine had gone to John Henry and Ben Cherington and said something like:

"Yu Darvish is going to be the next Justin Verlander, we must spend the money to ensure that he's in a Red Sox uniform."

Well it's not a stretch to think that the Red Sox would have been fairly competitive in this bidding process.

Texas Rangers GM Jon Daniels has some limited experience in scouting Japanese pitchers. In December of 2005, Daniels dealt pitcher Chris Young and outfielder Terrmel Sledge along with a minor league prospect to the San Diego Padres for pitchers Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka.

Otsuka went on to have a thoroughly unimpressive career as a set-up man in Texas and that minor league prospect's name was Adrian Gonzalez. (I wonder what happened to him?)

I'd gladly take Bobby V's opinion on Darvish over Daniels'.

Different Game

There was a time when Daisuke Matsuzaka appeared to be on the cusp of realizing the massive potential he arrived in the majors with. 

The year was 2008. Sure Dice-K struggled in his debut year of 2007, but there had to be some form of leeway as far as an adjustment period goes. Different fans, different media, different culture as a whole.

The move from Japan to the majors wasn't going to be easy. 

So when Matsuzaka finished 2008 with an 18-3 record and a 2.90 earned run average, the prevailing attitude in Boston and in most of baseball was that greatness was just around the corner. He'd continue to improve and only get better. 

That's not what happened though. Dice-K was used to going deeper into games and throwing more between starts; the Red Sox didn't like that type of workload so they altered it. 

DIce-K seemed to respond by placing more pressure on himself to throw strikes. Often he looked as if he was aiming the ball. The results of course were even more walks. Even in his 2008 season, walks plagued Dice-K.

He led the entire American League with 94 walks and while he also led the league in hits per nine innings pitched, his whip ratio remained a pedestrian 1.324. That number would be his career low in the majors. 

There is ample evidence to suggest that the Japanese umpires, in spite of working with an identical strike zone to their American counterparts, call slightly more strikes and that the ball in Japan is marginally smaller. There is also some evidence that Japanese umpires are more consistent with their ball and strike calls. That works to a pitcher's advantage, something that former big league pitcher Kip Gross (who also pitched in Japan) has discussed. 

Overall there are a litany of adjustments a Japanese pitcher must make on and off the field upon arriving in America to play in the major leagues.

Taken on individually, each cultural obstacle could be easily traversed. That's not how it works though. Darvish, like Matsuzaka, will have to deal with it all at once. He's joining a team that are the two-time defending American League Champions.

The lineup is already lethal. The pitching will make or break the 2012 season and Darvish with his massive cost and expectations will in the minds of many " make or break" the starting rotation.

That's just not a realistic expectation as Red Sox fans know.

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