Hold Your Horses
A couple of days ago, a major news agency published a report stating that Yu Darvish has decided to pursue an MLB career via the posting system this offseason. The news was widely repeated and set off a wave of speculation.
Unfortunately it was a little premature. On the 19th, Darvish shot down the report on his personal blog. I’ve translated the entirety of his blog post below (hope he doesn’t mind):
Articles saying “Confirmed: Darvish to the Majors!” have been appearing since yesterday.
As I mentioned on Twitter
Nothing is decided!!
I haven’t decided anything for myself so nothing can be confirmed.(^_^;)
It was an article from the Kyodo News, but what did they base their writing on?
You can say this is freedom of press, but with freedom comes responsibility.
I want a press that takes responsibility.
Every year, when I haven’t decided anything, they write “Majors this, Majors that”, but then when I don’t go they just make up excuses.
How did they write lies and escape responsibility?
Well, after the entire schedule is over, I will carefully think it over!
As soon as I decide I will let everyone know(^^)v
(as always, if the Nihongo speakers in the audience see any issues with my translation, please feel free to let me know.)
So there we have it.
My best guess is that whatever information the original reporting was based on came from the Nippon Ham side. Team owner Hiroji Okoso has been quite chatty about Darvish lately, most recently commenting “for an ace of his stature, if he’s willing to stay we’d have to think about JPY 700m, no, JPY 1bn.” That’s quite a statement, as it would shatter the record for highest-paid NPB player.
There’s obviously huge interest in what will happen with Darvish, so the speculation won’t stop. But the only guy with real credibility on the topic is Darvish himself.