The Nippon Ham Fighters are accepting a bid for $51.7 million from the Texas Rangers for the rights to negotiate a contract with Yu Darvish, according to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports:
The Texas Rangers have won the posting auction of Japanese right-hander Yu Darvish with a record $51.7M bid, sources tell Yahoo! Sports.
The Rangers now have 30 days to negotiate a contract with Darvish, which is believed to go north of $50 million itself, which makes this potentially a $100 million effort.
Here's the problem:
What Can Yu Do? The Potential Impact of Yu Darvish - MLB Daily Dish
To start, the Texas Rangers have been speculated to be a major player in this bidding war. Although adding $30 million in contracts this previous year, they are shedding a little over $10 million in salary. This of course, many believe would be a fair asking price per year that Darvish could collect. The problem is, they have many key players entering Arbitration years such as Andrus, Napoli, and Feliz; all who would need to be locked up. If the Rangers did not make a major push at $100 million for Wilson, why would they for Darvish?