So, the Rangers paid 110 million dollars for a rich man's Aaron Harang.

Discuss.

He's been better than his ERA will credit him for, but I'm really not surprised he's been more good than great. I never understood the idea of paying an unproven MLB pitcher a $100M contract.

He'll be better next season though. No way will his walk rate remain around 5 per 9.

It's probably too early to start shoveling dirt on Darvish, but it's really amazing that teams are willing to pay the kind of money they pay for Japanese stars, given the track record in MLB.

That's not to say Japanese players can't play in the majors, but I think you're better off with the more under-the-radar guys, who seem to do well as complementary players.

We all remember the Kaz Matsui debacle, but I can also remember respected baseball analysts claiming that Dice-K would revolutionize MLB with his assortment of pitches.

I think it's easy to forget that he's just 25. You can look at Japan as the minors, view him as a guy who came up a little late, and still see some room for development. He might end up being perpetually mediocre, but I think he'll be at least a solid number three going forward.

An enormous outlay for high risk. Never understood any team getting in on the posting process...Ichiro was an anomaly.

Well, maybe this will work out well after all. Darvish's final 2012 numbers look pretty outstanding. The ERA was a little high but once adjusted for the park and league, he was still more than 10% better than league average (89 ERA-). Here is how he ranked in some categories among qualified AL starting pitchers:

K%: 2nd
HR/9: 3rd
WHIP: t-20th
ERA-: 13th
FIP-: 3rd
xFIP-: 8th
SIERA: 8th
fWAR: t-3rd

Pretty much any way you want to look at it, traditional stats or advanced, he graded out as a top 20 pitcher in the league and was top 10 in every category besides WHIP and ERA. He could stand to walk fewer batters, but the ingredients of an ace are certainly there.

I thought it was crazy that, including the posting fee, he costed his team more than C.J. Wilson (who finished the season with very average numbers, by the way). It was still very risky, and it still could blow up at any point, but I think Texas is pretty satisfied with what they have in their young right-hander right now.

I'd have to assume the marketability of these guys (Darvish, Dice-K, etc.) is the biggest attraction. I imagine towards the end of a deal, when a pitcher has under-performed, that marketability has declined but I am guessing these teams have probably already made their money back by then.

They obviously are also expecting performance, but they probably don't need elite performance to necessarily occur for these to be worthwhile signings.