Two-time defending American League champions Texas entered the winning bid to negotiate with Japanese star pitcher Yu Darvish, Major League Baseball officials announced.
The Rangers now have 30 days to sign Darvish, a 25-year-old right-hander, to a major league contract after the Nippon Ham Fighters of Japan's Pacific League accepted the American team's negotiating offer.
Darvish, who joined the Fighters in 2005 after high school, was born to an Iranian father and a Japanese mother. He was this season's highest-paid player in Japanese baseball at an estimated 500 million yen ($6.4 million) a season.
Texas, which lost to San Francisco in last year's World Series and St. Louis in this year's edition of the best-of-seven final, beat out the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays for the rights just to make a deal with Darvish.
The offer was reportedly worth more than the $51 million posting fee that the Boston Red Sox paid in 2006 for the rights to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka, who would sign a six-year deal worth $52 million with Boston.
"The Texas Rangers are pleased and excited to have acquired the rights to negotiate with Yu Darvish," the Rangers said in a statement. "Our organization has scouted Mr. Darvish for the last several years and has been very impressed with his abilities and accomplishments.
"We believe he'd be a great addition to the Texas Rangers pitching staff. We look forward to beginning the next step of this process in the very near future with Mr. Darvish and his representatives, Arn Tellem and Don Nomura."
Darvish is likely to sign a bigger deal than the one given to Matsuzaka five years ago.
"We were pleased to learn that the Texas Rangers were the high-bidders for Yu Darvish," Tellem said in a statement. "The Rangers are an extraordinary franchise in an exceptional city with equally exceptional fans.
"Yu is honored to be prized so highly and recognized as a once-in-a-generation pitcher. We look forward to getting negotiations under way."
Darvish went 18-6 last season for the Hokkaido-based Fighters with a 1.44 earned-run average and 276 strikeouts in 232 innings. At 6-foot-5 (196cm) and 216 pounds (98kg), his size and skill figures to be baffling for US batters.
Darvish, who pitched for Japan in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2009 World Baseball Classic, has kept an earned-run average under 2.00 for the past five seasons in Japan. He has been the strikeout king three times and twice been named the Pacific League's Most Valuable Player.
Darvish would be the third Japanese-born pitcher on the Rangers' roster if they reach a deal, joining right-handed relievers Koji Uehara and Yoshi Tateyama.
Also on Monday, the Milwaukee Brewers were revealed as the top bidders for another Japanese prospect, Norichika Aoki, a three-time batting champion for the Yakult Swallows of the Central League.
Copyright 2011 AFP American Edition
