UPDATE: Darvish says he was just joking around about the Tanaka comments and apparently both Darvish and his interpreter were laughing as he said the quotes, although as you can see below that bit of context was oddly left out by several reporters on hand.
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Yu Darvish was asked today what he thought of the Yankees signing Masahiro Tanaka out of Japan for $155 million and his answer is sure to fire up a lot of New Yorkers:
Rangers Yu Darvish on Tanaka deal: I don’t know too much about the new posting system but I think the Yankees gave him too much.
— Anthony Andro (@aandro) February 18, 2014
By comparison, Darvish got $56 million to sign with the Rangers two offseason ago, but Texas also had to send his old team in Japan another $51.7 million in posting fees. In two years in the majors he’s thrown 401 innings with a 3.34 ERA, including a league-leading 277 strikeouts and a 2.83 ERA in 210 innings last season.
Which is why when Darvish also said today that his success–and the success of several other prominent Japanese pitchers recently–helped get Tanaka a bigger contract he’s no doubt right.
