Yu Darvish Trade Rumors: Deadline Day

It’s quite possible that today is Yu Darvish’s last day as a member of the Rangers organization. The Texas ace has drawn interest from several teams, with the Dodgers the most prominently linked club. However, Darvish has also been tied to the Yankees and the Indians to varying extents. The Astros are also said to have checked in, though the intra-division roadblock makes that notion a bit tougher. We’ll track all of the latest Darvish chatter in this post between now and the 4pm ET non-waiver trade deadline…

• At this point, it seems that Darvish will either go to the Dodgers or stay put, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter). Given other indications that Los Angeles is focused elsewhere, it could be that the righty won’t end up changing hands today.
• Yahoo’s Jeff Passan reports (via Twitter) that it’s “getting increasingly harder” to envision Darvish landing with the Dodgers, as the two sides “simply aren’t matching up.”

Earlier Updates

• Bowden suggests that the Dodgers could look to pry lefty Alex Claudio away from the Rangers in a package deal alongside Darvish (Twitter link). Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News suggests the same, though he notes that it’d still require the Dodgers changing their stance on the inclusion of Verdugo or Buehler. Claudio, though, is just 25 years old and is controlled through 2021, so he’d be a nice long-term piece for L.A. He’s held lefties to a laughable .131/.169/.197 slash this year and has a masterful 70.5 percent ground-ball rate overall in 2017. However, he doesn’t miss many bats.
• Yahoo’s Tim Brown tweets that the Indians “are not in on Darvish” at this time. Notably, Cleveland was reported by Hoynes to be in pursuit of Orioles closer Zach Britton.
• ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick, however, hears that the Indians and Astros are both “hanging around” in the Darvish picture, but the Dodgers are Texas’ preferred trading partner (Twitter link). The Yankees’ interest in Darvish is dependent on the outcome of their talks for Sonny Gray, Crasnick adds.
• Bowden tweets that the Astros, Indians and Dodgers are the three teams that are still in the mix for Darvish, and he again mentions Mejia’s name in connection to talks. Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer tweets that the Indians are interested in Darvish only if the price tag drops.
• While the Dodgers have generally regarded as the favorites for Darvish, their talks with the Rangers have essentially reached an impasse, tweets FanRag’s Jon Heyman. Los Angeles has reportedly been unwilling to part with the likes of top-ranked prospects Alex Verdugo, Walker Buehler and Yadier Alvarez for a half-season rental of Darvish, and it would seem that president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman has yet to budge in that regard.
• The Rangers and Indians have spoken about a “Yu Darvish for Francisco Mejia type” of deal, tweets Jim Bowden of MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM. Including Mejia, the consensus top catching prospect in baseball, would be a steep price for Cleveland to pay for a rental, though the wording of the report leaves some wiggle room for other pieces to potentially be involved. The 21-year-old Mejia is hitting .317/.367/.520 with 10 homers through his first 279 plate appearances in Double-A and ranked as baseball’s sixth-best prospect on Keith Law’s midseason list. MLB.com pegged him 16th overall, while Baseball America had him 18th. Cleveland is on Darvish’s no-trade list, though it remains possible that he could waive that right for a clearer shot at the postseason.