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January 25, 2012

Darvish and Texas History

My projection for the WAR Yu Darvish needs to generate to justify his contract:

Year
$
$/WAR
Required WAR
2011
--
4.50
--
2012
58.0
4.73
12.28
2013
10.3
4.96
2.08
2014
10.8
5.21
2.07
2015
10.8
5.47
1.97
2016
10.8
5.74
1.88
2017
11.0
6.03
1.82
TOTAL
111.7
--
22.10

Assumptions:
  • Posting fee included in full in 2012
  • $800,000 annual bonus for avoiding DL achieved
  • No early departure
  • $4.50mm/WAR in 2011 (per Fangraphs calculations), 5% annual increases

How would 22.1 WAR by Darvish rank in Ranger history, which contains its share of elite pitchers but few who stayed long enough to generate eye-catching WAR totals?

Name
G
GS
IP
ERA
FIP
WAR
Kenny Rogers 528 252
1,909
4.16 4.25 31.6
Charlie Hough 344 313
2,308
3.68 4.21 27.1
Kevin Brown 187 186
1,278
3.81 3.71 23.9
Bobby Witt 276 269
1,680
4.85 4.33 23.4
Fergie Jenkins 197 190
1,410
3.56 3.58 23.1
Nolan Ryan 129 129
840
3.43 2.91 22.6
YU DARVISH
-
-
-
-
-
22.1?

7th, a fair amount behind Rogers and Hough and nearly equal to the other four. Among other big contracts, Kevin Millwood (4 and $48 plus a $12 vesting option) ranks 13th at 13.8 WAR. Chan Ho Park (5 and $65) ranks a cool 55th with 3.6, same as John Butcher and Senator holdover Jackie Brown.

Texas's posting fee for Darvish was less than $4 million below its entire 2010 payroll.

Cheap Trick, "Stiff Competition," from Heaven Tonight, 1978.

Posted by Lucas at January 25, 2012 02:08 AM