Report: Winning bid for Darvish is larger than Dice-K’s

Via Franz Lids, the high bid for Yu Darvish is larger than the $51.1M the Red Sox paid for the right to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka five years ago. We still don’t know who placed that bid, but late last week we heard that the Blue Jays submitted a bit worth upwards of $50M.

Instant Analysis: Holy cow, assuming this report is true. I figured Dice-K’s general mediocrity would scare teams off of a bid that large, but like we always say, it only takes one team to blow everyone out of the water. Pretty crazy. Apparently the Nippon Ham Fighters are going to take the full four business days before announcing they’ve accepted the high bid, so one way or another we’ll know who won the right to negotiate with Darvish by the end of the Tuesday.