10:03pm: The Nippon-Ham Fighters are keeping information of the winning bid "very tight," tweets Yahoo Sports' Jeff Passan. A source tells Passan that Darvish himself doesn't know the price of the winning bid.
6:04pm: There are reports from Japan indicating the winning bid for Darvish was around $48MM, tweets MLB.com's Anthony Castrovince. Castrovince includes a Blue Jays hashtag on his tweet, but notes that nothing is confirmed about either the bid price or the winning team.
12:24pm: The Nationals did not bid on Darvish, according to Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post.
7:43am: The Blue Jays bid more than $40MM and possibly close to $50MM for Yu Darvish and are now favorites to win exclusive negotiating rights with him, George A. King III of the New York Post reports. Multiple sources confirm the Post's report to Jim Bowden of MLB Network Radio and ESPN.com, who says the Blue Jays "won the bidding" (Twitter link).
The Yankees also posted a bid on Darvish, but it's not expected to top Toronto's bid, according to King. The Rangers made a bid and there's a belief the Cubs made a large bid, the Post reports. Rogers Communications, which owns the Blue Jays, ordered the team to make a "monster" bid, King reports.
The Nippon Ham Fighters have until 4pm CDT on December 20th to accept or reject the high bid for Darvish. The Fighters don't know the identity of the MLB team that won the bidding on Darvish, but they're expected to accept the bid.
Is this “helping them win a world series” based on the 4.40 ERA he had in the 2007 season when they won? or the 5.03 post-season ERA that year?
That one very good year, (and that okay year) wasn’t even worth half the money he got…