Though he was clearly carrying plenty of rust, Cubs righty Yu Darvish nevertheless turned in a rather promising first spring outing today, as MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian writes. Darvish says he felt great and the radar guns reflected it. While he struggled a bit to stay in the zone, that’s a secondary concern at this point given the major health ailments that ruined his 2018 season. With $101MM still owed to Darvish over the next five years, the Cubs have to be encouraged to see him feeling strong, though he still has a ways to go to reestablish himself as a front-line starter.
More health notes from the central divisions …
- Reds right-hander Sonny Gray, who was scratched from his spring debut due to some elbow stiffness, is expected to throw a bullpen session Thursday, writes MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. The team’s most notable offseason addition to the rotation, Gray will also throw from flat ground at a distance of 120 feet today, per the Cincinnati Enquirer’s John Fay (Twitter link). Manager David Bell told Feinsand that Gray was initially concerned about the elbow discomfort but is in vastly better spirits and has felt improvement each day since being scratched. For the time being, it seems, the Reds have decreasing reason to be concerned about Gray’s status.
- The Royals are “backing off” from using Danny Duffy for the time being, manager Ned Yost tells reporters (Twitter links via Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star). The southpaw experienced tightness in his shoulder and had difficulty getting loose for his latest side session, though he eventually completed that session. Duffy feels it’s a minor issue and some standard-issue early spring stiffness. The Royals are already down a rotation candidate with righty Trevor Oaks perhaps headed for hip surgery, and subtracting arguably their most talented starter from the mix would be a considerably more damaging blow. Duffy, 30, struggled through a down season in 2018 but was Kansas City’s best arm in 2016-17 when he worked to a 3.64 ERA with 8.8 K/9 against 2.3 BB/9 in 326 innings.
- There was some ominous news out of White Sox camp, as Bruce Levine of 670thescore.com tweets that pitching prospect Dane Dunning is due for a closer medical look after experiencing forearm discomfort. The talented young righty has shown quite well ever since he cracked the professional ranks and entered the 2018 campaign as a consensus top-100 prospect leaguewide. Unfortunately, he missed half of the 2018 season owing to an elbow sprain. The hope was that Dunning would be able to pick up where he left off this spring.
Darvish will throw a No-Hitter with the Cubs
Maybe you meant no-outer….where he sucks so bad he gets no one out before getting pulled.
Cubs are stuck with his and Hayward’s boat anchor contracts. Terrible signings.
You’re clueless. Check back in October.
Yeah. Let’s see him pitch in the World Series again. That should be fun for cubs fans.
Yeah. You’re all clueless. The cubs are the best team in baseball. No respect
Yu Darvish has soft muscles. He gets injured because he is so tender. Should start calling him Wagyu Darvish and mooove him to the bullpen.
This is hilarious
Yeah! I hear Yu forgot how to pitch entirely!! Poor cubs with all their wins and talent and money…they are screwed!
I firmly believe the Cubs will win the central this year and they most certainly have talent but ownership has flat out said they are out of money so…… but hey your 2/3 and hitting .666, not bad!!!!
No they didn’t. They owner said they’re not spending any more money… When you’re already committed to 220 million in payroll, that’s a far cry from ‘out of money’
That’s more of a use of vocabulary. “Out of money” could certainly be used to describe the Cubs…. Does anyone believed they’re going bankrupt? I would hope not. But if they’re committed to not spending anymore saying they’re “out” isn’t an unfair claim.
Yes it is. Because it’s completely untrue by any use of the English language.
They have money, therefore they cannot be ‘out’ if it at the same time.
You’re willing to write Darvish off after one injury plagued season? Oof
When was his last good year….please….enlighten us….no seriously click on his name above….tell me the last time he was dominant?
Enough said….dude will get lit up like a pinball machine again this year.
Which is it? Last good year or dominant year?
Pick one….your choice
Cubs fans, being the HIGHLY delusional and susceptible to groupthink fanbase that they are, have basically brain dumped everything that happened with Darvish before he took the Cubs’ money. It doesn’t matter to them, because they live in the magical world of make believe.
Tell us again how a Cubs bullpen that didn’t blow a lead for the last 20 games of the season ‘failed them down the stretch’, oh totally not delusional one
Delusional White Sux fans…… still trying to bask in WS glory of almost 15 years ago that should have never been –
Hey, flags fly forever, no matter how you get them
Though considering the Cubs already have more playoff appearances since their last WS appearance than the Sox do, they really should choose their battles more wisely…
Hahaha, Chisoxcity is such a transparent. Darvish is so relevant and will probably strike out 500 batters. He’s a great young core! Also, the white sox uniforms are so yucky! Black and white!?! I mean come on! A little color never killed anyone. ; o
I’ll say one thing ChiSoxCity comes up with a lot of garbage but he sure knows how to get a rise out of all these cubs fans.
I don’t know about a rise, but it’s good comedy. Can’t really pick on him though, his transparent inferiority complex with the Cubs would be sad if it weren’t so damn funny.
Hahaha, It’s sooo flattering and adorable to have a lil stalker pretending to be me. I appreciate your obsession “bryzzo.2016” I’m sure the Cubs and the rest of the base does too! Keep up the great work! (I’ll get that autograph sent out soon, I promise)
Ugh, sorry for the above comment guys! Too much Chardonnay last night. I love you all!
White Sox trolling Cubs again, again, again.. The Sox may have had a rough history, a lot like the Cubs, but neither organization is without hope. If your mom could only have hope for you…….
Yet, people wonder why teams are being more conservative with their payroll. Heyward was the best example as to why WAR is so dangerous to solely rely on. According to WAR, Heyward has been a top ten option over the last 5 years. Smh
Actually, that’s more of a reason why a five-years-long sample size is dangerous to rely on.
Heyward is not a useful example of anything. His lack of production is notable because it’s an anomaly. Any team that gets scared away from 26-year-old free agents with productive histories because of the rare bust is a team of fools.
5 years is just an extremely long time to go back. 3 is the magic number when looking at data to me. Obviously recent data points are going to be most preferable but players can deviate year to year. A 5 year sample is going to have all kinds of issues. Probably some guys fairly high on that list that are completely out of baseball now.
Stupid comment. Prior to last year’s injury plagued season, he was an All Star in 4 of 5 seasons and an above avg. starter in his worst year. The Dodgers traded to get him, the Yankees wanted him and if he was not a Cub he would be highly paid by another dumb team. If his arm troubles do not come back, he will manage to get that 1 out that you mock. Now get a job for a day, and take that first paycheck and buy a life.
A game where no one hits anything because he can’t find the strike zone. I believe it.
That’s called an all-nighter
Cub getting to World Series the same way I am, by buying a ticket
Your mom buying you a ticket?
Perhaps Bastian was watching a different game than I was but Darvish exited in the 2nd inning having pitched 1.1 innings, allowing 2 runs, 1 earned, walked 4 and struck out none. He was facing a line-up of Brito, Tomlinson, Flores, Walker, Souza Jr., Avila, Tomas, Chisholm and Refsnyder. Granted there are no reports of injury, but my hope as a Cards’ fan is that he repeats these promising outings throughout 2019.
The guy hadn’t pitched in, like a year, and you should literally take nothing from ST stats. Pitchers and hitters are generally working on things – look at velocity, movement, and, most importantly, updates to any injury status. With Darvish, just the fact that his velocity and movement seemed to be good is the most important thing.
The lack of control is of some concern but to put much stock into a first ST tuneup is idiotic. Let’s see how he looks when he takes the mound in the regular season or even the end of ST.
Are you Mrs. Darvish by chance?
Just not an extremely butt-hurt Chicagco fan. You whiners acted exactly the same way at the start of Lester’s contract.
Darvish will provide a lot of surplus value on his contract, just so long as your medical staff figures out how to read a chart.
I don’t know if I’d bet on that one. He received 126 MM and the first season was a wash. He’s approaching 33 years of age and has 5 years left. I don’t think this is going to be a deal with a whole lot of surplus value at all. Tough to do that when you lose one of your early years. If he can return to form for the next 2-3 years I think the cubs would be happy enough at this point.
Sounds like there could be another TJ for a White Sox pitching prospect. With all of the injuries and slow development at the MLB level, it seems the rebuild has not been going according to plan.
You can say that again.
lol
Um… are you surprised? It’s the same clueless, inept front office that claimed to be “ALL IN” just a few years ago… remember? When thru traded Tatis Jr(MLB’s #1 prospect) for James No Game Shields THEN proceeded to finish with a worse record than teams actively tanking. Hahaha, and they wonder why Machado turned them down?!? Why EVERY top free agent has turned them down? I mean, if the fans and the media know how clueless and irrelevant the team is, why wouldn’t the players and their reps know? Haha, no wonder they obsess over anything Cubs, can you blame them? You don’t need to be Freud to recognize the blatant inferiority complex. Poor saps.
Tatis wasn’t anywhere near the top prospect in baseball. They traded some young kid with potential but he wasn’t even close to the guy he’s seen as today. I don’t understand the need for you and Chicity to go at each other over this nonsense. The cubs themselves have made a lot of bad moves recently. The amount of Top prospect trade chips you had at one point with your major league core was insane. Theo didn’t cash those minor leaguers in for a whole hell of a lot. Candelario,, Jimenez, and Cease got you Q, and Justin Wilson. He got burned on Heyward and chatwood. And we’re off to a rough start on Darvish.
Hamels was a great get. And he’s made a couple other nice additions of Cishek, brach etc. But for a team who just a few years ago had that much young talent in the minors and majors to have so many question marks right now is not good. I would’ve bet this cubs team was built to be a great team for years and years. Looks a lot more questionable at this point.
The last part of your comment rings true. Cubs’ fans were hoping for years of dominance with their young core, and minor league prospects. Hard to say that now. They will still be tough, but they certainly are no juggernaut, and enter 2019 as a maybe division champ at best, with questions in the rotation and bull pen, and with an offense that got no better, and let’s face it struggled at times in 2018. Even if Bryant and Darvish return to form they still aren’t a lock for the division.
Tatis hadn’t even played a game in the U.S. when he was traded. He was all potential.
Right. 9/10 you grab a guy like Tatis in that trade and he flops. You’re talking about a guy who was considered the #27 prospect in his class that year. He signed for 850K not 5.5 MM. And that’s when the Padres grabbed him. Great snag by them but not exactly the #1 prospect in baseball.
Yep; the Padres got very lucky. It helps that Preller was on board when they made that trade and Preller had actually seen Tatis in person and his background is in scouting, but usually when you trade for a 17-year-old it’s a total crapshoot. That trade was more about getting Shields’ salary off the books than it was about acquiring an elite prospect.
Gray’s “stiffness” is very minor, he didnt even get an MRI
Yeah, sounds like a precaution more than a panic coming from the Reds. Can’t say that I blame them.
Good news for Cubs fans: Darvish looks like a Cubs starting pitcher. Bad news for Cubs fans: that pitcher is Chatwood
Haha
lol
BEST news for Cubs fans…. they’re not White Sox fans. But yeah, let’s overreact to a spring training game. Is that really how sad and thirsty you guys are? Haha, so under this logic, I should be thrilled that KB is batting 1.000 so far, has yet to make an out. I guess he’ll do that for the whole season… Hmmm, being ignorant is kinda fun. lol
Chisox, sorry for being such a crabby pants at you! I tweaked my back at yoga yesterday!
Sonny Gray is doing a great job filling the Homer Bailey role with Cincinnati.
Hansen, Dunning, Kopech, Burger, Basabe, Adolfo, Burdi, Robert, Anderson, Moncada, Giolito, Collins, Rutherford, Fulmer all injured, regressing or stagnant in development and an owner unwilling to spend on the top tier FA’s.
Go Sox!
K.C. Needs to sign Dallas Keuchel. They need a proven ace
Kuechel’s not an ace.
KC looks like they’re going to be one of the very worst teams in baseball this year; I doubt they open the wallets for anyone at this point.
KC needs an ace, a cleanup hitter, a #2 starter, a legitimate bullpen, a 3B, an outfielder or two…… They’re not even close to be considering an expenditure of that size. Would be extremely stupid.
They also need someone on the team who understands the importance of, you know, getting on base. That’s important.
I’d sign him and others whose markets have collapsed. They can sell fans on the idea of competing, while receiving good/better returns for their players when they trade them.
Just put Duffy in the ‘pen already. He’ll never have much value as a starter at this point. Shouldn’t say never, just very unlikely.
Darvish is made of glass. This was an extremely poor investment.
The White Sox rebuild is already teetering toward being an abject failure.
I definitely wish the Twins would have targeted Darvish this offseason. I believe the Cubs would have been pushed to move him for very little while eating a fair chunk of his salary. Darvish would have been fine last year if he was diagnosed correctly early on.
If the hope of the White Sox was really…“that Dunning would be able to pick up where he left off this spring.” That wish has been accomplished…Dunning left off last year hurt in June until the end of the season and continues to be hurt this spring!!!