Yu Darvish Is A Dodger

Just when baseball’s deadline day looked to be a lot of hype with little payoff, we got an after-the-buzzer Rose-bomb:

Yes, it appears that Texas Rangers ace Yu Darvish is headed to the Los Angeles Dodgers, where he’ll beef up an already stacked roster that has the fewest runs allowed in baseball and is on pace for 114 wins.

Darvish is ninth this year among all AL pitchers with a 2.4 WAR, with poor numbers at home balancing out very good away stats. His ERA for 2017 currently sits at a career-high 4.01, with an almost equal FIP at 3.98. He’ll surely get a boost both by moving to the NL and playing in a more pitcher-friendly park.

The Rangers, under .500 and currently five and a half games out of the wild card, get three prospects in return: 2B/OF Willie Calhoun, pitcher A.J. Alexy, and infielder Brendon Davis. They were ranked fourth, 17th, and 27th among Dodgers prospects by MLB.com. Not part of the deal is the previously rumored hot prospect Alex Verdugo, a 21-year-old AAA outfielder currently ranked as the best position player in L.A.’s system.