TORONTO — The Toronto Blue Jays have reportedly made a $50 million dollar offer just for the right to negotiate exclusively with Japanese pitcher, Yu Darvish.
Though having never played in the MLB, the 25-year old right handed pitcher already has a storied baseball career playing internationally. He played in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2009 World Baseball Classic as a member of the Japanese National team, and currently plays on for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters as part of the Nippon Professional Baseball League.
The reported offer from the Toronto Blue Jays is also not the first time North American teams have scouted the Japanese pitcher. While Darvish was still in high-school, he was recruited by several MLB teams, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Angels.
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He reportedly turned down all MLB offers so he could stay in Japan to play baseball.
After high school, Yu Darvish entered the NPG amateur draft. He was drafted in the first-round by Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. He initial professional contract gave him a salary of 15 million yen (approximately 200,000CAD), with a signing bonus of 100 million yen (approximately 1.32 million CAD).
In his six year professional career, Yu Darvish has accumulated several accolades. He was a two time Pacific League MVP (2007 and 2009), the 2007 Eiji Sawamura Award – the award given to the Pacific league’s best pitcher, the Pacific League’s strikeout title (2007, 2010, 2011), ERA title (2009, 2010), the Best Nine Award – given to the Nippon league’s best pitcher (2007, 2009), the Mitsui Golden Glove Award (2007, 2008) and the 2007 Pacific league Climax Series MVP. He is also a 5 time All-Star.
Darvish, above of being a perennial all-star, is also a humanitarian. Darvish established the “Yu Darvish Water Fund” in 2007. The goal of the fund is to bring sustainable water storage and facilities to developing countries. He also announced plans to donate 100,000 Yen to the fund whenever he won a regular season game.
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