For starters, teams do not post players, the player requests a posting from his team. The team then has the right to either approve or deny this request with no re-course by the player requesting. Nippon Ham owns his rights for another 6 full years, possibly longer if any injury time so can’t see him going anywhere till at least 2011/2012. This rumour is pure unsubstantiated speculation at the best.

For starters, teams do not post players, the player requests a posting from his team. The team then has the right to either approve or deny this request with no re-course by the player requesting. Nippon Ham owns his rights for another 6 full years, possibly longer if any injury time so can’t see him going anywhere till at least 2011/2012. This rumour is pure unsubstantiated speculation at the best.

Is there a posting issue, as one of the commenters on that blog brought up?
====
Could be; how did the Yanks land Katsuhiro Maeda?

The blind bidding aspect of the posting system needs to be eliminated.

Well, I don’t see how one can say he “can’t” be posted for four years. The team can post him whenever they want, right?

I think the issue is that they can keep him for a few more years before losing him, so why would they post him instead of playing him? It seems far-fetched that he’ll be in the bigs in 2008 or 2009. He’s only 21. If he has two more years like this, he’ll still command a huge amount of money when he’s posted. The Red Sox have ruined this market now, though. Because of their ridiculous overreach on Mats, it’s probably going to take 65-100 million to get Darvish, who is younger and better than Dice-K is.

Is there a posting issue, as one of the commenters on that blog brought up?

By the way, anyone know why Mike never updated the blog after his “transition”?

I’m glad Darvish finally got some love on the blog, Steve! Darvish is legit. He is the man. He’s not your typical cross-over star. He’s a big guy who throws low 90s and he is ridiculously durable. I’ve been following him thanks to Mike’s brilliant blog.

If the Yankees actually have a shot to get him that early (he’s still quite young) then they should do everything in their power to do so. He put up much better numbers at this age than Dice-K ever did.

Ha!
http://darvish-yu.jp/index.html

Speaking of failed TJ recovery, what do you think the odds are of Pavano contributing the second half of next year?

Assuming we have a six man rotation, can we make one of these guys a bullpen long man?
Rasner
Karstens
Kei
Carl