Why Yu Darvish’s trade is scary for all baseball

Twenty-nine baseball teams had the opportunity to acquire one of the best pitchers in the world for little more than a handful of lottery tickets, and only one took advantage. If the free agent market frozen this winter was not a sufficient sign that Major League Baseball has an anti-competitive problem, Yu Darvish’s switch to the San Diego Padres sent a clear reminder that inaction is not just a problem – problem field.

The Fathers’ aggressiveness in dealing with Darvish and former Cy Young winner Blake Snell for a 24-hour period is in stark contrast to the vast majority of the rest of the sport, which was hampered by a class of owners using the coronavirus pandemic. as an excuse to reduce payroll. Money was the factor that contributed to the Chicago Cubs, one of the sport’s jewelry franchises, dispatching Darvish, its best player in 2020, for a year as a starter Zach Davies and four candidates, three of them teenagers who did not professionalize in -bat and a 20 year old with less than 300 on the novice ball.

Any criticism of the return is in vain, without a deeper dive into why a player of Darvish’s kind brought back a trifle. The answer to that question brings together many of the questions that should concern game administrators: the complacency shown by many franchises; the pandora box of expanded playoffs; the poor appearance of all the highest revenue teams in the game practicing some version of austerity simultaneously – and the combined effects on labor relations with a collective bargaining agreement less than a year from expiring.