Yu Darvish -- Naaaah, Who NeedsIm Dept.
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Q. Yu Darvish? Why would the Mariners want to acquire a non-MLB starter when they already have eight* good MLB starters?
A. Why would they want to acquire Danny Hultzen when they did?
On June 6, 2011, the Seattle Mariners had every starting pitcher that they have now -- plus they had Doug Fister and Erik Bedard. ... sitting on all those pitchers, they still deployed the #2 overall pick to acquire a starting pitcher, that being Hultzen.
We fans tend to count our chickens not only before they hatch, but before the eggs are laid.
At the time Zduriencik drafted Hultzen, he had
- Felix
- Pineda
- Fister (converted to Furbush)
- Bedard
- Vargas
- Paxton (who he knew would start in April 2012)
- Taijuan (who he pencilled in for no later than 2013)
- Jose Campos
- Blake Beavan
And after Zduriencik had drafted Hultzen, when he did trade Fister, he brought back in a young LHP starter that would be in his top 5 rotation.
The M's organizational strength is already pitching? Don't even go there. The pro's don't think that way.
You have a chance to improve your team by a 5-WAR player, you grab him. End of story. You can always configure later, and a real 5-WAR player is a very different conversation from a potential 5-WAR player.
Maybe Danny Hultzen will be real good. Maybe Taijuan Walker will be. We don't know. Yu Darvish throws two good games in the AL, he's worth twice what they are.
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Look at the Danny Hultzen acquisition. He was completely redundant when they drafted him, right? And how glad are you now?
Yu Darvish pencils in as one of the top 10-15 AL starters, a high-strikeout David Cone 17-win type. Get him on a roll, as one of the M's Big Three, and ask me then whether Jose Campos is redundant. :- )
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Q. Is Darvish the M's type of player? He was involved in some centerfolds and gambling and stuff in Japan. And he's, famously, half gaijin, which might affect old-school Nintendo execs.
A. Who is the Mariners' cultural icon after Ichiro's done? ::he stops short::
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The Japanese fan contingent is, as you might have noticed, a rather important part of the way that the Seattle Mariners do business.
Darvish is not only an Ichiro replacement in terms of talent, but also in terms of star power.
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You'd have to ask Taro or IceX, but it seems that Darvish has been fully "forgiven" and adopted as an NPB poster boy. Certainly the transition to Seattle would scrub any past blemishes; Japanese-American citizens aren't going to be concerned at all about his Iranian heritage.
Darvish might fit better in diverse, liberal Seattle than he did in Japan.
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