Rangers Top Prospects: #1 Yu Darvish

 

The half-Japanese, half-Iranian strikeout artist has played his entire career with the Japanese Nippon-Ham Fighters. He joins Texas after the club bid $51.7 million for the right to exclusively negotiate with him in November. The club then then inked him to a six-year contract worth $56 million in December.

Darvish was widely considered the best non-MLB pitcher in the world before coming to the United States. He amassed 1,259 strikeouts and 98 wins with a miniscule 1.99 ERA in seven seasons in Japan. He posted an 18-6 record and a 1.88 ERA at age 24 last season, all while leading the league in starts (28), innings pitched (232), shutouts (6), strikeouts (276) and WHIP (0.83).

Texas hopes Darvish can become an ace to answer the likes of Detroit’s Justin Verlander and New York’s CC Sabathia. His biggest strengths are his command and large repertoire of pitches, featuring seven while overseas. Rangers pinching coach Mike Maddox says they will try to limit him to four or five pitches to achieve consistency, but Darvish has been throwing all seven so far in Surprise.

At 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds, Darvish will slot into the Rangers rotation in the number four spot, but the plan is for him to eventually rise up to the top. He has 50 complete games to his credit and has averaged 200 innings per season in his career so far. As is the case with any foreign-born player, there figures to be an adjustment period but the team hopes he can move past it quickly as they will rely heavily upon the right-hander to make up for the loss of ace lefty C.J. Wilson to the rival Lon Angeles Angels.