Finally. Another big name comes off the free agent board as Yu Darvish pens a six-year $126M deal with the Chicago Cubs. The deal comes with an opt-out clause in 2019 and the deal will go through his age 36 year. Darvish had been drawing interest from teams such as the Twins, Dodgers, Yankees, Astros, and the Brewers. He is coming off a season having posted a 3.86 ERA, 209 punch outs and ending with a 10-12 record (career worst). He was still considered the top pitcher in the free agent market ahead of Jake Arrieta. This comes despite performances in both the regular season and the postseason.
Darvish is joining a Cubs pitching staff that is heavily stacked with Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks, Jose Quintana, and new addition Tyler Chatwood. With the squad Chi-Town has this season, they are yet again favorites to win the NL Central, despite Milwaukee stocking up. The Brewers hauled in Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain. They are now more of a threat at the plate with Thames and Braun. So now we leave ourselves with the question:
Where does this leave the MLB?
Only time will tell when the current free agents that are left are going to find a home. Hopefully the Darvish signing will spark the free agent board and we’ll begin to start seeing more signings. We’re still waiting on whether Eric Hosmer is going to be the new face of San Diego or if he will stay with Kansas City. JD still hasn’t signed and I personally don’t want to get into that at the moment. Jake Arrieta hasn’t signed with ANYBODY yet. Anything can happen really now that pitchers and catchers are reporting for Spring Training and other position players are making their way down there. We could see multiple big signings in the next week or two. However the way this offseason is going I’m not getting my hopes up.
My predictions: Arrieta to Milwaukee or Washington, Hosmer to KC and JD….. Honestly I don’t really care where he goes. I’m over it at this point.