Dewan: On Japanese star Yu Darvish
From SABR member John Dewan at ACTA Sports on December 9, 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.
Read the full article here: http://www.actasports.com/statoftheweek/
Originally published: December 9, 2011. Last Updated: December 9, 2011.