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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
“I will walk a thousand leagues in falsehood, that one step of the journey may be true.”
I’m surprised it took this long, but the Yu Darvish to MLB rumors may have just officially kicked off right along with the new year. A Sports Hankook (Korea) report, relying on a Japanese source (Sports Nikkan), says that the Yankees plan to nab Darvish following the 2008 season.
The report goes on to say that the Dodgers, Mets and Cubs have also made “love calls” (???) to Darvish and that the floor of negotiations is something along the lines of what Daisuke Matsuzaka was able to command during his posting extravaganza in 2006.
...Not to be a killjoy, but it should be noted that this is a Korean newspaper reporting something posted (blogged) on a Japanese newspaper’s Web site. While I’m of the opinion that both sources are reputable in and of themselves (Sports Nikkan was first to report the L.A. signing of Kuroda), the implications of this rumor are too big to not warrant further checking before we hustle Darvish off to New York.
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1. Enrico Pallazzo Posted: January 02, 2008 at 12:23 AM (#2658044)He has a similar resume to Matsuzaka: high school superstar, first overall draft pick, throws hard, racks up strikeouts. But only 21 years old now.
Japan is weird.
and Brian Wilson hangs up.
Those are Korean characters and the translation is correct.
and Bill Walton is on his knees.
...too late for Arthur Lee.
However, this is indeed nothing to really get worked up over. It's just off-season rumor mongering to fill column space, probably based on some off-hand comment by an assistant to the Assistant to Traveling Secretary.
Darvish has never expressed interest in going to MLB, and will have at least five years, maybe more, before he's a free agent, which means it'll be at least 3 years before Nippon Ham is going to even entertain posting him.
I don't think the fact that Darvish hasn't expressed interest means much. He's a Japanese kid, for him to start spouting off about wanting to being posted --let alone complain about his minuscule salary --is pretty unlikely.
We can only speculate as to what his desires are. My guess is that unless he grew up (as a half-Japanese kid) with such nationalist fervor that he ignored MLB and doesn't know who Roger Clemens is, that he has some desire to play in MLB.
repoz
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Kilometers to miles: multiply by 0.62
km miles
120 74.4
130 80.6
140 86.8
150 93.0
He's 22 years old. A few years of dominance, and he'll get bored.
It's the done thing in Japan at this point, so I really think he'll come over.
Jeff Kent: No. Hu is starting today.
Derek Lowe: I don't know. That's what I just asked you: who is starting today?
Jeff Kent: That's right. Hu is starting today.
Derek Lowe: I just asked you that! Who is starting today?
Jeff Kent: I know Hu is starting today! I already asked Yu about it!
Derek Lowe: No, I asked *you* about it! Okay--what players are starting today?
Jeff Kent: Hu.
Derek Lowe: The players that are starting today!!
Jeff Kent: Well, there's Loney, Pierre...and Yu, of course.
Derek Lowe: I'm not starting today! I started yesterday!
Jeff Kent: I know that! But Yu told me who the starters were!
Derek Lowe: I did not tell you that! I don't even know who's starting today.
Jeff Kent: I just said Hu was starting today! Yu told me that!
Derek Lowe: How I could I have told you? Okay, let's try this one more time--do you know who is starting today?
Jeff Kent: Yes, I know he is starting today.
Derek Lowe: How could Hee be starting today? Hee got waived like three years ago. I think Hee's back in Korea now.
Etc.
Man, I wish I could watch NPB games via MLB.TV.
Seriously, I'd rather watch some NPB games than a Pirates-Giants suckfest in August.
NPB games have a glacial pace. And not an Al Gore/Inconvenient Truth glacial pace. I'm talking about a glacial pace back when that metaphor meant something different.
Sometimes NPB games are streamed live via japanesebaseball.com
If a similar system worked in the US, who would command much higher than a $50m posting fee? I can't imagine someone bidding, say, $100m for the right to pay Pujols.
How has there not been a Kaz Tadano reference in the first 25 posts?
And I think I saw Love Calls For Yu Darvish open for Velocity Girl back in '94, but it may have been Gaunt that they opened for.
The Russians helped him develop his fastball??
I feel slightly bad for Japanese baseball. It'd suck if most of our best and most popular players jumped ship to say, western Europe at 26, 27 to play baseball there.
AKA Why MLS will never be truly popular.
Thanks for those links.
Gotta love those NPB umps punchout motions on "caught looking" strikes three!
Yeah, that's the analogy I was thinking of. But I don't know s*** about soccer so I didn't want to mouth off. But lets say MLS salaries are comparable to European salaries (I have NO idea how close they are). Would that matter? If we keep the best American players here, would it help MLS's popularity? Or would they still go to play against the best players? In the most popular market? How much of Japanese players moving here is money and how much the desire to play against the best players in the world?
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