Sticker Shock for Rangers
The Rangers are kicking the tires and looking under the hood, but when they saw the sticker price in the window it was a bit of a shock. It appears that Yu Darvish is seeking a contract of $20 million per year for five years. That is separate from his $51 million posting that the Rangers will have to fork out if they agree to a contract, so that would up the payment to this athlete in the range of $151 million for five years to sign him, with $71 million of those dollars paid up front. The Rangers have offered quite a bit less than that, but they are willing to offer six years. Yu Darvish is remaining fairly quiet because he still understands that he can still be pitching for the Nippon Ham Fighters in 2012 if negotiations don’t go well.
The NPB may want to tweek its procedure on posting if the Yu Darvish negotiations fail. It appears that most of the recent postings have not been successful. The major league team tries to negotiate under the premise that they have already paid X amount, but the player is negotiating under the premise that this X amount is not going to me.
You can read about the negotiating here: http://yakyubaka.com/2012/01/07/sponichi-talks-between-texas-rangers-and-yu-darvish-are-apparently-not-going-well/