Yankees Interested in Yu Darvish

It has been posted on various sites around the internet today that the Yankees are interested in Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish. Darvish is an Iranian/Japanese starting pitcher for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. He is 21 years of age, and is widely heralded one of, if not the best pitchers in Japanese baseball. He is listed as 6'5" tall and 185 pounds.

This is from MLB Trade Rumors:

Today, East Windup Chronicle speaks of a thirdhand report indicating the Yankees' intent to acquire Darvish after the 2008 season. Apparently the Dodgers, Mets, and Cubs are on his trail as well. According to the report, Daisuke Matsuzaka's $8.6MM salary would be the floor with Darvish. And I'm guessing his posting fee would easily exceed Dice-K's $51.1MM.

Here are his career stats from Wikipedia -

Year	W	L	GS	CG	SHO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA
2005	5	5	14	2	1	94.1	97	37	37	7	48	52	3.53
2006	12	5	24	3	2	149.2	128	55	48	12	64	115	2.89
2007	15	5	26	12	3	207.2	123	48	42	9	49	210	1.82
TOTALS	32	15	64	17	6	451.2	348	140	127	28	161	377	2.53

Here's a video of Darvish in action, looks like he has very good stuff.