Yu Darvish wasn’t expecting trade
It has been a bizarre offseason in Major League Baseball, with many teams remaining eerily quiet. Many top free agents remain available with clubs unwilling to break the bank in order to win. One team that hasn’t been the exception to the rule is the San Diego Padres who have made a flurry of moves in the past couple of weeks that included the acquisitions of Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Kim Ha-seong.
Darvish nearly took home the National League CY Young award last season as the league’s best pitcher, finishing second in voting. The 34-year-old led the Cubs with an 8-3 record, posting a 2.01 ERA during the campaign. His success with in Chicago may be why the pitcher was caught off guard when he learned he had been traded with three years still remaining on his current contract.
“With what’s happening with the coronavirus, and the money the Cubs have, I wasn’t thinking about being traded,” Darvish told members of the media last week through an interpreter, via ESPN. “And also, they are a winning team and I thought we would be able to compete.”
The Cubs are starting to look to the future and begin the rebuilding process though after reaching the playoffs for five of the past six seasons and winning the World Series in 2016.
“We’ve been as aggressive as possible for this group over the past six years … with prospects, with money,” said Cubs’ president Jed Hoyer, via ESPN. “At some point you have to have one eye on the present and one eye on the future. … We have a lot of really good players, but do we need to make some moves with the future in mind after six years of moves being directed on the present? Yes. I think that’s the prudent thing to do.”
Darvish joined the Cubs prior to the 2018 season, signing a six-year deal as a free agent worth $126 million. He has never won the World Series, but was in the final in 2017 with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He did win the 2009 World Baseball Classic with Japan though.
“A lot of [Cubs] people reached out to me and everyone was pretty shocked and felt bad,” Darvish said. “So this reality is great. I’m excited to play for the Padres.”
With their recent acquisitions, the Padres become immediate World Series contenders. They ended their 13-year playoff drought in 2020, losing to the Dodgers in the NLDS. They finished the shortened regular season with a respectable 37-23 record, good enough for second in the NL West division.
“My first year with the Padres, going into spring training, I really want to be open and meet everybody,” said Darvish.
San Diego has never won the World Series, but has been to two finals – the most recent one in 1998. It remains to be seen whether the moves made the Padres will work out, but fans of the club have to be excited about the ambition they are showing.
