The San Diego Padres are allergic to not making the news.
In the most recent development, the franchise gave pitcher Yu Darvish a contract extension worth $108 million over six years.
He will be 37 years old in the summer, which is why everyone is puzzled about the decision to hand over a six-year deal.
But the truth is that the Padres may have lost him after the season if he had another great performance in 2023.
They are trading some of his potentially worst years for the possibility of keeping his average annual value (AAV) relatively low.
It helps that he just had one of the best years of his career in 2022.
“It’s something of a gamble, paying that adds up to a 36-year-old vet. But the Padres are convinced Darvish is the guy to gamble on. They feel he’s still getting better, still developing, still curious. He had one year left on his deal prior to this, and he didn’t want to leave SD,” Padres insider AJ Cassavell tweeted.
It’s something of a gamble, paying that adds up to a 36-year-old vet. But the Padres are convinced Darvish is the guy to gamble on. They feel he’s still getting better, still developing, still curious. He had one year left on his deal prior to this, and he didn’t want to leave SD.
—AJ Cassavell (@AJCassavell) February 9, 2023
Darvish is one of those pitching nerds that loves to investigate concepts like spin rate, spin axis, release point, horizontal and vertical break, spin efficiency, and more.
In other words, he is very much open to using modern resources to improve or maintain a certain level.
It helped him in 2022, as he had a 3.10 ERA and approached 200 innings.
The guy has a 3.50 ERA and more than a strikeout per inning.
He mastered on a yearly basis and is ready to keep up the good work for the next six years.
The Padres are trying to maintain their pitching core – Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove – together for as long as they can.
