Texas Rangers fans glad Yu Darvish missed out on a Cy Young

The 2014 Cy Young finalist have been announced and this time Texas Rangers ace Yu Darvish isn’t among them.  Back when the season started most thought that Darvish would make another run towards inning the award, even the odds makes picked him as an early favorite.

You might ask why he was a favorite to win a Cy Young in 2014, mainly because of his past performance and finishing well in the Cy Young voting in 2013.

Darvish did have another good season, but it wasn’t anything like he had in 2013 when he had a near perfect game, no-hitters and just overall amazing games.  To be fair Yu Darvish probably pitched just as well as he did last season, but he lacked run support and defense behind him to help him keep his ERA down and win games.   It almost seemed like towards the end of the season before he went on the disabled list that he started to scale back a bit of what he was doing on the  mound.  Maybe it was to save himself from further injury and to make sure he was prepared for 2015.

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Overall it’s probably a good thing that he didn’t make the finalist list or win a Cy Young this season.  For one it helps ensure for at least now that he can’t opt out of his contract early with the Texas Rangers.

"“He wanted five years and were weren’t going to do that for a variety of reasons,” Daniels said. “It was important to him to at least have the possibility of being free. If he finishes in the top three or four of the Cy Young three out of the five years, we probably got our money’s worth.” (Richard Durrett – ESPN – Dallas)"

That means since Darvish has already finished second in the Cy Young voting once then he would only need to win a Cy Young or finish in the in the top 3 or 4 in the next two seasons he can become a free-agent at the end of the 2016 season.  His current contract takes him through the 2017 season, basically the Rangers would lose a year.

Texas Rangers fans should want Darvish to do well, but just miss out on a Cy Young just like he did this season.  He’s truly the ace of the club and if the Rangers hope to make a run at a title again in the next few years they are going to need Darvish to do it.