Yu Darvish is a real ace
After trading for Yu Darvish in the offseason, the Padres have gotten even more than they could've hoped for in the 34-year old ace and Cy Young Award contender.
When the Padres traded for Yu Darvish, who finished 2nd in NL Cy Young voting last season, I was excited but also assumed that he wouldn’t be quite as good in 2021 as he was in 2020. I’m sure I was not alone in thinking this.
My thought process was pretty simple: 60 games is a really small sample size and it led to some things that weren’t insane but were a little bit outside of what we’ve come to expect as normal from Darvish.
Logically, this is the guy I was expecting the Padres to get. Before 2020, Yu Darvish had been a really good player. He posted an ERA+ over 100 every season but one, and has consistently been around 120 since coming back from Tommy John surgery in 2015.
If you’d rather see those numbers combined:
That’s a really good baseball player! This is exactly who I assumed would show up on the Padres at 34-years old with three years left on his big money contract.
Here’s who he was during the COVID-shortened 2020 season, though:
It stands out, right? An 8-3 record for a bad tea, the ERA+ over 200(!), the WHIP under 1 for the first time in his career, the HR/9 and BB/9 falling off a cliff to career lows. Also, look at that FIP!
I had assumed, over a full season, Darvish would be the guy he had always been and that he just got hot at the right time last year. That still might be true, but so far he looks a lot more like 2020 Darvish than any of the previous years the guy has been in MLB.
An .800 winning %, an ERA+ over 200, a FIP under 3, career lows for WHIP and H/9…
If 2020 Yu Darvish finished in 2nd place in the Cy Young voting, I’d wager a guess that he’s got the award in his sights this season.
Just for the heck of it, let’s combined last season and this season:
We spend a lot of timing fearing some of the best pitchers around the league, whether it’s Walker Buehler or Jacob deGrom or Kevin Gausman, but Darvish is as good or better than any of those guys when he’s humming along like this.
The Introduction
The funny thing is that Darvish has been even better this year than the numbers suggest. If you recall, his first start ended poorly as the result of him and Jayce Tingler trying to stretch out longer than he had at any point in spring training.
He ended up giving up a home run, a walk, and another home run before Tim Hill was warmed up enough to replace him. Darvish ended up throwing 93 pitches in 4.2 innings pitched, but I kind of want to remove that start and see how good he’s been without it. Because it was more of a managing mistake than poor performance.
A 7-1 record and an ERA of 1.26 over 8 starts is damn good. The rest of the rotation and bullpen has been really good for the Padres, but nobody has really been as good as Darvish, which exactly why he leads the team in WAR.
The Cutter
So, what has led to Darvish going from really good to really great? The statcast numbers have an answer but it’s not an easy one to figure.
I remember going back through the numbers before this season and seeing this trend, because it actually started about halfway through the 2019 season. Yu Darvish has switched his most used pitch from a 4-seam fastball to a cutter (or "cut fastball”) that moves a lot more.
Where it gets a little murkier is that Yu’s cutter actually gets hit pretty well. Hitters have an average of .354 against it this season, as an example. That’s even with the extra 100rpm or so he added to the cutter before last year. But it must tunnel better with the rest of his pitches because the increased use of the cutter has led to a dramatic increase in the effectiveness of pretty much everything else he throws.
The Trade
The fact that Yu Darvish is on the Padres is still kind of insane. Teams don’t typically trade the Cy Young runner up, and they definitely don’t do it when that guy has three more years left on his contract.
If they trade that guy, they’re doing it because they can’t afford his contract and/or want a huge bounty of prospects to help rebuild their farm system. But the Cubs could very much afford his contract and they didn’t want a huge bounty of prospects.
And, in the very rare situation when a team wants to get rid of a big money contract in a salary dump, the Padres have never been the team with deep pockets who could take that player on without missing a beat.
Yet, here we are.
It’s pretty obvious what happened. After losing Mike Clevinger, and maybe Dinelson Lamet, A.J. Preller wanted a new “ace” for his staff heading into the 2021 season. He called around and found a partner in the Tampa Bay Rays, trading for Blake Snell, but came back to see if he was right about what the Cubs wanted in return for Darvish.
Once he confirmed the low price, just a salary dump, all that was left to do was to get Peter Seidler to sign off on the additional expense and suddenly the Padres had a 34-year old pitcher throwing the best he ever has in an already impressive career.
Yu Darvish being on the Padres is improbable and magical, and I can’t wait to find out if he can win a Cy Young award (and/or a World Series) in San Diego.
I haven't felt this calm watching a pitcher start since Peavy. Even when he gives up a couple hits, he doesn't let it all unravel.