When is a win not a win? When the prize costs over 100 million dollars the that prize is unknown. Congratulations I guess to the Texas Rangers who had the top bid for Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish. Texas posted over 51 million just to have the right to negotiate a deal with Darvish. Now the tricky part. Texas has 30 days to make a deal with the Japanese Righty or he stays in Japan next year. The exact amount of the post was 51.7 million which tops the all time record of 51.1 mill the Red Sox put up for Daisuke Matsuzaka. The Sox then signed Daisuke for 52 million over 6 years which brought the total cost to over 103 million. For that sum the Sox got 2 prolific years where Matsuzaka went 33-15. However the last 3 years his combined record is a pathetic 16-15.

I find it interesting that the Rangers who had major financial problems until Nolan Ryan's group purchased it from Tom Hicks had that kind of coin to put up. 2 ways to look at it. Either all of a sudden Texas is now a "big market" club again or they used the money they saved from not signing over-rated C.J Wilson who got 77 million from the Angels. Perhaps Darvish will be a good investment when looking at it from that angle

However looking at the lack of success of Japanese pitchers from Hideki Arabu to Kei Igawa to Yoshii and many others this a HUGE gamble. The most successful japanese pitcher was Hideo Nomo and you can make the case he is the only pitcher to have a solid career that came from Japan.

Other teams were also interested in the services of darvish including the Yankees and Blue Jays. Time will tell fast if a deal is agreed whether both those clubs were saved by the Rangers mammoth bid.

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