Controvesy! (Averted...)

As one journalist noted on twitter earlier, the reason why Yu Darvish isn't more candid with the media is because of days like today.

Early this afternoon, someone finally got Darvish to open up about the Masahiro Tanaka/Yankees contract. His two comments were "I don't know too much about the new posting system but I think the Yankees gave him too much.," followed by "I think Kuroda, Iwakuma and I really helped him as far how the scouts and teams evaluated him." The first comment speaks for itself; the second seems to imply that the success of Darvish, Kuroda and Iwakuma led scouts to grade Tanaka higher than he otherwise might be. Of course, there isn't really anything controversial about the first comment...it's a common sentiment around the baseball world. The second comment is interesting *and* worthy of debate, but is also a bit of a slap in Tanaka's face. The statement suggests that Darvish and the other two are all superior pitchers to Tanaka, a fact that benefited him when scouts judged him by *their* merits instead of his own.

Controversial, insightful, and interesting.

Unfortunately, what was left out of the initial reports is that both Darvish and his translator were laughing when he delivered the comments, and the pool of reporters present laughed in response. After the story blew up, Yu tweeted that he thought it was obvious that he was joking; and he thought that the reporters present, by their laughter, understood it was a joke. He apologized for any misunderstandings that the comments created.

And that's why ace pitchers from Japan can't be forthright with the media. I do, in fact, mean it when I say "forthright" and "candid", because, despite the laughter, I believe Darvish shared what he actually believes. Of course, it suits my taste because *I* believe it, too...but that's beside the point. If you follow Darvish's blog or Facebook page, it's pretty clear he follows his news clippings. At least half of the off-season Darvish news I got first off of *his* sharing of a story. Darvish is a diva. Thankfully, he's got the dance to back it up, but still...

There is no way in the world Darvish is *not* aware of the following facts:

1. When he signed with the Rangers, opinion was very mixed on how well he would do in the MLB and whether Texas had just blown most of their $100 million + investment.
2. After his first year, there was still a considerable amount of opinion that Yu had had his one good year, and would never have another high-performance season.
3. While acknowledging that Tanaka has never been considered as good as Darvish, the majority opinion on the new MLB pitcher was that he would immediately step into the #2 role in any rotation and maybe even be almost as good as Yu.
4. The Yankees gave Tanaka more than twice as much as Darvish got.

I cannot seriously believe there are journalist out there who seriously believe this isn't an issue grating on Yu's nerves. And you can bet, standing right behind Yu Darvish, whispering in his ear, is Jon Daniels:

"I know what you're worth. You'll get it, when the time comes.

But, apparently, some people out there still don't believe.

You know what you need to do.

Prove it."






It's a nice image.

If you're a Ranger fan.

Posted by: Ben at 09:11 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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