Door Closes on C.J. Wilson, Opens on Darvish?

Well it took until the last day of the Winter Meetings, but all of the major free agents have found homes for next year and now it is just a matter of letting the dust settle over the next few days. My guy Mark Buehrle went to the Marlins (geez, who didn’t?) and C.J. Wilson will join new teammate Albert Pujols on the Angels. When I saw the details of Wilson’s deal I was initially irked. I mean, $77.5M for 5 years?! When his asking price was reportedly upward of $100M I said there was no way I wanted the Yankees to pursue him. But for $77.5M? I would have been fine with the Yankees throwing their hat in the ring. But that being said, Wilson’s agent Bob Garber noted that the Marlins offered a deal in the six-figures and that Wilson “turned down a lot of money to play for his hometown team.” With that in mind, there is no reason to think the Yankees would have been able to get Wilson for anywhere near the money the Angels are paying him, and they likely would have had to greatly overpay him to land him.

Despite his apparent desire to play for his hometown Angels, Wilson wasted no time expressing his disappointment that the Yankees didn’t get involved:

Boohoo.  Perhaps Wilson shouldn’t have priced himself out of the Yankees market with his initial salary demands. Andrew Marchand was similarly skeptical of Wilson’s disappointment:

Sounds about right.

So now what? Well, the good news is that Yu Darvish is going to be posted, so there is still some hope for a shiny new gift under the Yankees Christmas tree this year. Darvish took to his blog “Thoughts of Yu” (awesome) with this message to fans:

"To all the fans, an announcement.At this time, Yu Darvish has decided to use the posting system. Because I wanted to relay this to the fans first, I am announcing this here. I greatly appreciate the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters Baseball Club. Because we’ve only just begun the posting process, I can’t talk about the details now. I wish to hold a press conference once everything is decided.Yu Darvish"

Now this is something I can get excited about. Based on comments from Brian Cashman it was pretty much decided going into the Winter Meetings that the Yankees would pursue neither Buehrle nor Wilson. But I’m legitimately excited about Darvish and the fact that the Yankees’ patience so far this winter could open the door to landing him. And even better, the Red Sox are likely out of the Darvish race before it even begins! So there it is – a very quiet Winter Meetings for those of us in Yankee Universe, but the offseason is far from over and things look to just be heating up.