Report: Rangers Hold Rights To Yu Darvish After $51 Million Bid

After more than a month of speculation, with non-stop rumors flying back and forth, Yahoo! Sports' Jeff Passan is reporting that the Texas Rangers have won the bidding for Japanese right-hander Yu Darvish. From Passan:

The Texas Rangers won the rights to negotiate with star Japanese right-hander Yu Darvish by placing a record $51.7 million bid in a posting auction, sources told Yahoo! Sports.

The Rangers have exclusive negotiating rights with Darvish for 30 days, and will pay the Nippon Ham Fighters that $51.7 million if a contractual agreement is reached.

The amount bid by the Rangers breaks the previous posting-fee record, set by the Boston Red Sox when they bid $51.1 million for the rights to Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2006. After paying that posting fee, the Red Sox signed Matsuzaka to a six-year, $52 million contract.

Darvish has long been the top Japanese prospect, as he hasn't had an ERA over 2.00 in the NPB since 2006, when he was 19. His stats, via his Wikipedia page:

Nippon Professional Baseball
Year	Age	Team	W	L	W%	GS	CG	SHO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	league ERA
2005	18	Nippon-Ham	5	5	.500	14	2	1	94.1	97	37	37	7	48	52	3.53	1.54	4.06
2006	19		12	5	.706	24	3	2	149.2	128	55	48	12	64	115	2.89	1.28	3.62
2007	20		15	5	.750	26	12	3	207.2	123	48	42	9	49	210	1.82	0.83	3.57
2008	21		16	4	.800	24	10	2	200.2	136	44	42	11	44	208	1.88	0.90	3.90
2009	22		15	5	.750	23	8	2	182	118	36	35	9	45	167	1.73	0.90	4.03
2010	23		12	8	.600	25	10	2	202	158	48	40	5	47	222	1.78	1.01	3.94
2011	24		18	6	.750	28	10	6	232	156	42	37	5	36	276	1.44	0.83	2.95
Career			93	38	.710	164	55	18	1268.1	916	310	281	58	333	1259	1.99	0.98

Darvish will present some interesting options for the Rangers, who already had five starters penciled into their rotation, even after the departure of C.J. Wilson. Alexi Ogando, Colby Lewis, Derek Holland, Matt Harrison, and Neftali Feliz were scheduled to start, though it seems likely that Feliz will return to the bullpen if the Rangers don't make a trade.