Darvish ready for major league challenge - 美國職棒

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TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The Yu Darvish sweepstakes are set to begin.

Nippon Ham Fighters ace Darvish, long said to be Japanese baseball's next
biggest export to the majors, is ready to make a move stateside through the
posting system this offseason, Kyodo News learned through several sources on
Tuesday.

The 25-year-old Darvish, the highest paid player in Japanese baseball at an
estimated 500 million yen per season, is expected to officially ask the
Fighters to put him up for bidding after the postseason.

Nippon Ham finished second in the Pacific League during the regular season
and will meet the Seibu Lions in the first stage of the Climax Series
starting Oct. 29 -- when Darvish will take the hill at Sapporo Dome.

The Fighters are likely to grant Darvish his request.

"If he wants to play at a higher level, then that's his wish," Nippon Ham
owner Hiroji Okoso said.

"It's really up to him," a source at the team said. "That was the conclusion
they reached after a series of talks."

The earliest that Darvish, who has spent all seven seasons of his career with
the Fighters, can qualify for overseas free agency is 2014.

This season, the 1.96-meter right-hander is 18-6 in 28 starts with a
miniscule 1.44 ERA -- the fifth straight year in which he has had a sub-2.00
ERA.

A winner of the 2009 World Baseball Classic, Darvish also has 276 strikeouts
in 232 innings, both tops in the PL. He has been linked with several major
league teams in the past, among them the New York Yankees.

Last offseason, the Rakuten Eagles put up Hisashi Iwakuma for bidding, which
was won by the Oakland Athletics. Iwakuma and Oakland, however, failed to
strike a deal, sending the right-hander back to Rakuten for this season.

(Mainichi Japan) October 19, 2011

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