Rangers History Today: The Winning Bid for Yu Darvish

The Rangers were looking for pitching to put them over the top, and they went overseas to grab one of the game's most sought-after arms.

On this date in franchise history, the Texas Rangers landed one of the game’s most coveted foreign players.

On Dec. 19, 2011, fresh off a pair of World Series appearances and looking for a difference-maker in the starting rotation, the Rangers won the bidding war for Japanese pitching star Yu Darvish. After becoming a star pitcher for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, Darvish was one of the most sought-after arms of the 2011-12 offseason.

The process to acquire a Japanese used to be quite tricky. For Japanese players who want to move from Nippon Professional Baseball to Major League Baseball before they’re free agents, they have to go through a posting system, which—at the time—allowed MLB teams to bid on those players.

The Rangers made the winning bid—a whopping $51.7 million, which broke the record of $51.1 million that Boston paid for Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2006. But, all the Rangers’ winning bid did was give them 30 days to negotiate with Darvish. The Rangers were able to get a deal done in the 30-day window, signing Darvish to a six-year, $60 million contract.

Darvish lit baseball on fire as a rookie in 2012, going 16-9 with a 3.90 ERA and struck out 221 hitters. He was an All-Star who finished third in American League Rookie of the Year voting. In 2013, he led the AL with 277 strikeouts and went 13-9 with a 2.83 ERA. That was his best season, as he reached the All-Star game again and was the runner up in AL Cy Young voting.

Injuries began to catch up with Darvish in 2014, but he went 10-7 in 22 starts. He missed the entire 2015 season due to Tommy John surgery and returned in 2016 in late May and completed the season 7-5 in 17 starts.

Finally, in 2017, the Rangers—who were heading toward a rebuild—decided to deal Darvish to the Los Angeles Dodgers after he went 6-9 in 22 starts.

With the Rangers, Darvish went 52-39 with a 3.42 ERA and 960 strikeouts. During that time he reached 500 career strikeouts faster than any pitcher, in terms of innings pitched.

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