Darvish to Toronto?

Darvish to Toronto?

yu_darvish

Today I was participating in an online chat with Baseball America’s scouting guru Jim Callis.  It contained most of the typical post-draft jibber-jabber until one question piqued my interest:

Adam (Top of CN Tower about to jump)
Just a recap.. the Jays “save” money letting Rios go. Plus other moves to “save” money.. then they don’t sign 3 of their top 4 draft picks including Paxton who is Canadian and could go top 10 next year… This is all positive developments no ? I am getting closer to the ledge right now…. unreal

Jim Callis  (3:00 PM)
Darvish.

Turns out Callis was using new chat software and answered Darvish for the following question: Who is better, Aroldis Chapman or Yu Darvish?

I have followed Yu Darvish previously and got all fired up, running to Twitter to let the Blue Jays blogosphere/cognoscenti know how exciting 2010 would be with Yu Darvish in the fold.  I feel bad now, but also not really.  At this point in the season all we have left are dreams of next season.

Picture the Jays rotation in 2010 with Darvish in the fold:  Halladay, Darvish, Marcum, Romero, Richmond/Rzepczynski/Cecil/McGowan (I pray!)/.  All of a sudden the Jays have some depth and a very decent 1-2-3. PLAYOFFS!!

If the rumours of a payroll boost are true (hat tip to Jeff Blair) coupled with the savings on Rios, Rolen & the draft it is not ENTIRELY out of the realm of possibility that the Jays could compete for Darvish.  Take into account the substantial Japanese community in Toronto, the chance to pitch under the brightest spotlight in baseball (the AL East of course) etc. etc….. it could happen. Not likely, but it could happen.  A guy can dream.

darvish-777034

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4 replies on “Darvish to Toronto?”
  1. says: massimo

    During the third Korea-Japan WBC game, the ESPN commentators reported that Darvish stated explicitly that he would never come to the MLB, that he would rather retire from baseball altogether, because leaving Japan would be a disservice to Japanese baseball and in particular young Japanese fans.

    I found this information via a comment on fangraphs.com, but remember hearing it as well.

  2. says: Kman

    Super Tease!

    “Turns out Callis was using new chat software and answered Darvish for the following question: Who is better, Aroldis Chapman or Yu Darvish?”

    I wonder how much Darvish will command in bid+salary? Probably about about fives times Strasburg’s $15 million. Putting things in that light it looks like the Nats did pretty well for themselves.

  3. says: Callum

    That seems about right to me. Matsuzaka cost the Red Sox $100+ million in bid + salary. With the way the “economics of the game have changed” as JP Ricciardi says, $75 million would seem reasonable for the younger and more electric Darvish. If JP were to go after Darvish, it would look something like this: all of the Rolen/Rios/Draft savings + the boost in payroll (30-40 million on the bid) then sign Darvish to a 4 year heavily backloaded contract that sees him earning oh, I don’t know… 2 mil the first year, 5 mil the second year, 10 mil the third year and 25 the final year.

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