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Yu Darvish

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December 09, 2011

According to his agent, Don Nomura, Yu Darvish was posted yesterday (Thursday, December 8) for a move to MLB from Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), the top Japanese professional baseball league.  This is a process whereby major-league teams bid in a silent auction for the exclusive rights to negotiate with Darvish.  The auction is four days long.

Darvish is the latest superstar Japanese player to make the move across the Pacific, and MLB teams have been waiting for him to become available ever since he recorded the final out of the 2009 World Baseball Classic to clinch Japan's second WBC title.  And now that the big names like Mark Buehrle and C.J. Wilson are off the board, Darvish becomes one of the best remaining free-agent starting pitchers available.

Each year in The Bill James Handbook we include the career stats of players that are most likely to leave the Japanese leagues to come over and play in the United States.  This year, Darvish is obviously the most high-profile such player.

Here are Darvish's career numbers from Japan, playing for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.

Season Age Wins Losses ERA IP SO
2005 18 5 5 3.53 94.1 52
2006 19 12 5 2.89
 149.2 115
2007 20 15 5 1.82 207.2 210
2008 21 16 4 1.88 200.2 208
2009 22 15 5 1.73 182.0 167
2010 23 12 8 1.78 202.0 222
2011 24 18 6
 1.44 232.0 276
Career - 93 38 1.99 1268.1 1250


If you are curious how that compares to the last highly-touted young pitcher that helped Japan win a World Baseball Classic title (MVP of the 2006 tournament) before deciding to join MLB the following year, here are Daisuke Matsuzaka's career numbers playing for the Seibu Lions.

Season Age Wins Losses ERA IP SO
1999 18 16 5 2.60 180.0 151
2000 19 14 7 3.97
 167.2 144
2001 20 15 15 3.60 240.1 214
2002 21 6 2 3.68 73.1 78
2003 22 16 7 2.83 194.0 215
2004 23 10 6
 2.90 146.0 127
2005 24 14 13
 2.30 215.0 226
2006 25 17 5
 2.13 186.1 200
Career - 108 60 2.95 1402.2 1355


It will be interesting to see what kind of posting fee and contract Darvish gets.  Dice-K pitched a bit more at a young age, but Darvish has been more consistently dominant than Dice-K was.  Darvish has had an ERA under 2.00 for five years running, and threw more than 200 innings in four of those five years.  Will that lead to a similar $100 million outlay, like Dice-K got ($51 million posting fee plus $52 million 6-year contract), or will teams spend more cautiously after seeing the up-and-down performance of Dice-K since he entered MLB?

You can find more statistics on Japanese players that are likely to sign MLB contracts this year in The Bill James Handbook 2012.

 


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