It doesn't matter whether it's the amateur draft or the posting system. Give a team and a player's representation any amount of time and they're likely to use every single second to get a deal done.
Whether it's a day, a week, a month or a year, the allotted time is irrelevant. All that matters is that the two sides play a half-hearted game of chicken while making the rest of us wait until the last possible second to get wind of the details.
All of which, of course, brings us to Yu Darvish. The whirling Japanese pitching phenom is officially and finally headed to the United States after coming to terms with the Texas Rangers on a six-year, $60 million contract on Wednesday afternoon. Those details were first reported on Twitter by our own Jeff Passan.
The deal completes a month-long negotiating window that was opened when the Rangers agreed to pay a record $51.7 million posting fee to the Nippon Ham Fighters last month. It also puts to bed any speculation that Darvish and his agents — Don Nomura and Arn Tellem — might intentionally let the window expire in order to send a message about a Japanese posting system that limits players to the choice of just one team. (If that had happened, the Rangers would not have been required to pay the posting fee.)
At any rate, Darvish and a large Japanese media contingent are now guaranteed to be part of Rangers spring training when pitchers and catchers report to Surprise, Arizona next month and Texas will be dealing from a position of strength when it comes to its 2012 rotation. The biggest loser, meanwhile, might be free agent Prince Fielder since he likely just lost the Rangers as a bidder for his services.
Perhaps agent Scott Boras should institute a deadline of his own for the first baseman?
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