According To Yu Darvish, There Is A Mystery Team In On Yu Darvish

Welcome to 2018, where baseball offseason news and rumors are coming from the baseball players themselves. Yu Darvish is the top starting pitcher on the free agent market this winter, possibly even the top free agent overall depending on who you ask, and there’s been plenty of speculation over where he’ll ultimately end up. There was a report that the possible Darvish landing spots were down to the Yankees, Cubs, Astros, Twins, and a potential reunion with the Rangers.

Darvish caught wind of this report, as he’s been known to do this offseason, and retweeted it with some thinking emojis.

Had he left this tweet alone for baseball fans to speculate, perhaps it would’ve been interpreted as the list being partially or even completely inaccurate. Less than ten minutes later, Darvish essentially confirmed this list of teams and then added another detail.

Who could this mystery team be? Is there a mystery team at all? Is Darvish fucking with us? I, personally, don’t think he is. I think that the list of teams is accurate, and there’s one more team in on Darvish, just as the right-handed pitcher claims. But who could it be? The first team that comes to mind is obviously the Dodgers.

Although Darvish shit the bed in the World Series, the 31-year-old was pretty good after getting dealt to LA, posting a 3.44 ERA in 49.2 innings with 66 strikeouts. Also, if you look up and down the Dodgers’ current rotation without Darvish, there are injury question marks with virtually everybody — Clayton Kershaw has recently dealt with back injuries, Rich Hill and his infamous blisters, Alex Wood’s shoulder, and Hyun-Jin Ryu being one year removed from shoulder surgery.

Darvish, who’s almost two years removed from Tommy John surgery himself, could definitely provide some insurance to that Dodgers rotation beyond just being one of the best strikeout pitchers in the game. If, God forbid, Kershaw were to go down for an extended period of time like he has in the last two seasons, then you’d still have an ace in Darvish to keep you afloat. So, long story short, I think the Dodgers are the mystery team that Darvish is referring to.

All that being said, I still think the Cubs find a way to sign Darvish. Assuming that they lose Jake Arrieta to free agency, I think this is a no-brainer move for Chicago. They have the money, they have the need, and they have the winning environment that a free agent pitcher in their 30’s would want to be a part of. The Astros seem like they’re focused on Gerrit Cole at the moment, the Twins are more of a sleeper team in the Darvish Sweepstakes, we haven’t heard much from the Rangers on the Darvish front, and it feels like the Yankees’ interest in Darvish is modest at best.