in a matter of months.
When he was younger, Darvish said he had no interest in working for any American baseball teams. But he started changing his tune a year ago.
The 25-year-old right-hander, considered the best pitcher in the Japanese professional leagues, wrote on his blog last week that he had decided to use the posting system, which allows American teams to bid for the negotiating rights to Japanese players who have yet to become free agents.
Darvish is the son of an Iranian father and a Japanese mother who met while they were both going to college in the United States.
Darvish had 18 wins and six losses with a 1.44 ERA this sea- son for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. He had 276 strikeouts, which was the best in the Pacific League.
The Fighters gave him approval to negotiate with a US club through the posting system. The 6-foot-5 Darvish has superb control and throws seven effective pitches, including a two-seam fastball introduced during the 2010 season. It’s expected he would make a top-of-the-rotation major league starter in the United States.
“Darvish is the No. 1 pitcher in Japan, but we want him to be- come the ace of the world,” Nippon Ham team representative Toshimasa Shimada said.
Darvish turned pro in 2005 at 18. His pro career got off to a rocky start when he was caught smoking in a pachinko parlor during his first spring training, despite not being old enough to smoke or gamble legally.
After going 5-5 with an unimpressive 3.53 ERA in his rookie season with the Fighters, Darvish had a breakout year in 2006, going 12-5 with a 2.89 ERA and 115 strikeouts.
In 2007, Darvish won the Eiji Sawamura Award presented to the top pitcher in Japanese professional baseball after posting a 15-5 record with a 1.82 ERA and a league-leading 210 strikeouts. For his pro career so far, Darvish has 93 wins and 38 losses with an ERA [earned run average] of 1.99
Under the posting system, US clubs had until Wednesday of this week to file bids for the right to negotiate with Darvish. If the Fighters accept the highest bid, the US club that placed that bid will have 30 days to finalize a contract with the player. If no deal is reached, Darvish returns to the Fighters for another season.
In 2006, pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka drew a $51.1 million posting fee from the Boston Red Sox, who signed him to a six-.” year, $52 million contract, taking the total package to more than $100 million.
The New York Yankees, one of several teams said to be interested in Darvish, won the negotiating rights to shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima of the Lions last Wednesday. The posting fee for the 29-year-old was $2.5 million.
There is always the possibility that Darvish could go to Canada instead of the United States. The Toronto Blue Jays, the sole North American major league baseball team in Canada, is said to be very interested in getting Darvish.
