Yu Darvish wants more than he’s currently being offered, and he’s not blinking

There have been rumors all offseason about where Yu Darvish might end up, with a more intense flurry of possibilities happening over the last week or so. The Twins, Astros, Rangers, Brewers, Phillies, and Cubs have all been connected to him in one way or another with various levels of interest and aggressive pursuits.

As of now, the Brewers are the ones in the lead, and according to Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports, Darvish isn’t their end-all-be-all pitching target as they’ve tested the waters with at least one of the others among the top pitching trio of Jake Arrieta, Alex Cobb, and Lance Lynn — all of whom have not had many legitimate rumors attached to them in recent weeks.

Milwaukee seems to primarily be going head to head with Chicago for Darvish right now, but even though the Brewers are allegedly throwing offers his way that are at least in the same neighborhood as Reasonableville, he’s not blinking.

Heyman is reporting that the ace wants something more like the seven years and $175 million deal that Stephen Strasburg signed back in 2016.

He is almost certainly not going to get that level of commitment from a team, but that those numbers are even being put into the universe from his camp shows that he’s not tempering his expectations just because it’s now Feb. 1 and the free agency environment right now is a buyer’s market through and through.

The deals he reportedly has been offered up to this point have all reportedly hovered around $100 million (with some, shockingly, in double digits) and are limited to five years. Five years and — possibly — double digits for Darvish would have seemed impossible only a few months (and a World Series start or two) ago, but here we are.

So good for Darvish that he’s not accepting “this offer is better than other free agents are getting and that’s as high as we’ll go” and simply signing because the season is sneaking up on everyone and he doesn’t have a new team. The rest of the starting pitchers still available seem to be taking the same tack when it comes to negotiating, as have many of the position players still in the hunt for a deal.

While I’m not saying a group chat definitely exists where all the starting pitchers are sharing the embarrassing low offers they’ve been getting, if none of the pitchers has given in by this stage of the game just to get paid they are definitely digging in for the long haul.