Yu Darvish
On a gorgeous early March afternoon of the first day of 2012 spring training games, I was in Surprise, Arizona, to witness the Texas Rangers tangle with the Kansas City Royals. What I most remember is the excitement caused by Rangers Rookie Yu Darvish, a Japanese import who came to the states after a dazzling career in Japan that saw him go 93-38 over seven seasons with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. In what I thought of as a Darvish frenzy, there were several photographers on hand from the Japanese press who took a stunning array of pictures, including action shots of him adjusting his cap, tightening his belt, tugging at his sleeve and standing tall. Yep, Yu Darvish was the man of the hour. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the photographers who shadowed our man as he stood at attention during the singing of the Star Spangled Banner.
Photographs of players lining up on Opening Day, the All Star Game and the World Series have graced sports pages, yearbooks and magazines for almost as long as there have been cameras. As far as I can recall, this was the first one that zoomed in on a particular player. Now that’s a frenzy!
So how did Darvish do? The record says 16 wins, 9 losses, 3.90 ERA, 1.280 WHIP, 10.4 strikeouts per nine innings and a 3.52xFIP. I looked at his pre and post All Star numbers and saw a slight difference, but nothing overly significant. His 1.36 WHIP and .227 OBA shrunk to 1.18 and .212. However his 3.59 ERA expanded to 4.26.
Will he improve in future years? I sure hope so. A number of factors look good. Even though his 2012 Texas Rangers team finished the season with a resounding thud, they’re still a solid club that should continue to contend. They can hit, so he’ll get good run support much of the time. He’s got a good pitching coach in Mike Maddux, and that’s another plus. The team’s owner, Nolan Ryan, is a Hall of Fame pitcher who has high expectations for his pitchers. And, getting back to Darvish, he has more pitches in his arsenal than most pitchers; I don’t even know what to call some of them, but the chances are good that he will mix them more effectively and throw them with greater confidence as a result of the experience he gained in his first major league campaign.
So do I want Yu Davish, and his 4.0 WAR on my team? The answer is yes. Is he still a big story? Once again, the answer is yes, as evidenced by the below card from the 2012 Topps Update set. I enjoyed watching him pitch several times during his rookie campaign, and look forward with interest as the months come and go and he once again graces major league pitching mounds.
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Hi Michael,
Whether Darvish develops and improves further or not might depend to a large extent on whether or not he starts to challenge hitters a bit more. His strikeouts and walks totaled 310 last season, around 38% of all the batters he faced. That means, due to all those pitches thrown, he will not be able to pitch as deep into games as the Rangers would probably like him to. He’s got to find a way to induce more one or two pitch, groundball / pop-fly at bats. That means he has to stop trying to fool every batter on every pitch, and once in a while throw a pitch that can be put in play.
But since he’s still young, has a solid organization behind him, doesn’t appear to have had physical ailments in his past, and is a big guy, he should be able to improve for at least the next couple of years before reaching his plateau.
Nice post,
Bill