There’s been a lot of talk about what’s kept MLB’s free-agent market moving at a snail’s pace. Some fans think the teams aren’t ponying up the money necessary to sign top players. Others say players are being too greedy, wanting too much money.
But the rumors surrounding the New York Yankees and Yu Darvish are quite a testament to the offseason stalemate we find ourselves in. Did the Yankees offer Darvish big money and move quickly when he didn’t accept in 48 hours? Or, as Darvish tweeted Friday, did such an offer never even exist.
The Yankees acknowledged Thursday that they have interest in signing Darvish, who is considered the No. 1 free agent pitcher on the market, according to Jeff Passan’s rankings. The Yankees are also one of the teams on Darvish’s reported list of finalists. But this nugget via Michael Kay — the Yankees play-by-play voice and a radio host at ESPN NY — is better than both of those.
Wow: Michael Kay is reporting the #Yankees offered Yu Darvish a contract around seven years and $160 million. But when Darvish didn't accept within 48 hours, they pulled the deal.
— Dan Federico (@RealDanFederico) January 11, 2018
Yep, that’s a *reported* $160 million that Darvish didn’t bite on. That’s a lot of money, but also in the range of what many expect Darvish would sign for this winter. Signing a 31-year-old pitcher to a seven-year deal isn’t exactly a great long-term move, but baseball gonna baseball.
Until you take this into account. Darvish himself tweeted Friday that such an offer never existed:
They don't give me offer yet https://t.co/Zlp4KPLdzr
— ダルビッシュ有(Yu Darvish) (@faridyu) January 12, 2018
Darvish has used Twitter this week to make his free-agent courtship much more interesting, dropping short little nuggets like this. Earlier in the week, he responded to reports of his five finalists by saying, “I know one more team is in.”
Thinking-face emoji indeed, Yu.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
