Cubs sign Yu Darvish to 6-year, $126 million contract

The long offseason of uncertainty is over for Yu Darvish, as the 31-year-old right-hander signed a six-year, $126 million deal with the Chicago Cubs. There is an opt-out clause included in the contract, and performance clauses can push the deal up to $150 million. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic was the first to report the deal.

Darvish, a four-time All-Star, started last season with the Texas Rangers before being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a deadline deal. He finished the regular season with a 10-12 record and a 3.86 ERA (118 ERA+), striking out 209 batters and walking 58 in 186⅔ innings.

Darvish helped the Dodgers win the National League pennant with two excellent starts, allowing just two runs in 11⅓ innings, but his postseason will likely be remembered for the two starts after that. His nine runs in 3⅓ innings in two World Series starts resulted in a 21.60 ERA and the two shortest starts of his career, as he failed to make it out of the second inning in both games, including Game 7.

Still, the Cubs are banking on those two starts being anomalies, and Darvish will join a rotation that also features Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks, Jose Quintana, and Tyler Chatwood. While Darvish’s new deal doesn’t officially close the door on a return from Jake Arrieta, it certainly makes it less likely. The Cubs’ payroll is roughly $168 million with Darvish’s $21 million average salary, according to Spotrac, which gives them the sixth-highest payroll in baseball. Considering that they’ve sold $168 million in World Series Championship sweatshirts just to guys named Keith over the last two years, there’s probably a little more payroll flexibility to work with.

Other teams rumored to be in the Darvish hunt were the Dodgers, Yankees, Brewers, and Twins. The former two showed only tepid interest because of their commitment to staying under the fake salary cap, and the latter two are likely going to focus on the remaining free agent starters — Arrieta, Lance Lynn, and Alex Cobb.

The Cubs didn’t need to get a whole lot better to be the consensus favorites in the NL Central, but that’s exactly what happened. They have one of the best rotations in the league now, and they’ll complement that with the same young, powerful lineup from last year.

Jon Lester signed a six-year, $155 million contract with the Cubs at the same age as Darvish is now, so it would seem as if the mega contracts for pitchers are decreasing. But while the Lester contract is a good comp, it’s worth nothing that he came off a stronger season, both in terms of run prevention and innings pitched. Still, Darvish probably deserved a little more, and he fell short of the predictions that both Jon Heyman and a baseball insider made at the start of the offseason.

It looks like the waiting game has helped the Ricketts family save more money, so, yay? It’s certainly made the Cubs better, and we’ll see if he starts a cascade of pitching deals now that the market has been set.