What the Miami Marlins can learn from this...

The San Diego Padres re-signed ace Yu Darvish for 6 years/$108 million. There is a lesson here for the Miami Marlins. The Fish should give out some extensions as well, in fact ace Sandy Alcantara deserves one as well (you can get his bobblehead as one of the ticket promotions this season!) The positive thing that the Miami Marlins can learn is to extend the stars, the negative however is a lot bigger here....

The Miami Marlins can learn from the Yu Darvish extension

Yu Darvish debuted in 2012 with a lot of hype with the Texas Rangers and delivered a 3.90 ERA/3.29 FIP with 10.4 K/9 and 4.2 BB/9 in 191.1 innings pitched. It was clear that the strikeouts and potential was there, but the walks were an issue. In 2013, he followed that up with a 2.83 ERA/3.28 FIP along with 11.9 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9 in 209.2 innings pitched. At this point he was 26 years old. In 2014, he had a 3.06 ERA/2.84 FIP with 11.3 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 in 144.1 innings pitched. He required Tommy John Surgery after.

Yu Darvish came back in the 2016 season with a 3.41 ERA/3.09 FIP along with 11.8 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in 100.1 innings pitched. He split 2017 between the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Dodgers and delivered a 3.86 ERA/3.83 FIP with 10.1 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in 186.2 innings pitched. This wasn't good obviously, compared to his previous results. He was also abysmal in the playoffs. Darvish signed with the Chicago Cubs in the off-season and had a pretty underwhelming time there. He pitched to a 3.60 ERA/3.77 FIP with 11.3 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in 294.2 innings pitched. The ERA wasn't bad but he wasn't the ace that he was signed to be.

Yu Darvish was traded to the San Diego Padres and pitched in both 2021 and 2022 there. He produced a 3.61 ERA/3.59 FIP with 9.9 K/9 and 2.0 BB/9 in 361.0 innings pitched. His strikeout rate has been going down annually from the 11.5 in 2019 to his career-low of 9.1 in 2022. He is now 36 years old and will be 37 next season. It's INSANE to give him a 6 year deal at this point.

What can the Miami Marlins learn from this? Extending core players is a must, and is something that is necessary for an annual winning team. The other lesson is that giving 6 year extensions to 36 year old declining players is the epitome of stupidity.