(Image source: MLB.com)

BY SAM KOROTKIN

ANCHOR CHRISTIAN BRYANT

You're watching multisource sports news analysis from Newsy.

The best Ham Fighter in the world could be making his way to the United States.

The Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters of the Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball league have given phenom pitcher Yu Darvish the right to talk with Major League Baseball clubs through the posting system.

But who exactly is Yu Darvish? A writer from SB Nation explains.

“For those who don’t know about Darvish, the primary thing you should know is that he would immediately become the best starting pitching option on the market — above even Mark Buehrle, C.J. Wilson or any other names that you’ve heard.”

Now that the Fighters have posted Darvish, MLB teams can place secret bids for the right to negotiate with Darvish. If the Fighters accept the highest bid, the team that wins the auction would have 30 days to sign him to a contract. ESPN’s Buster Olney says Darvish will be costly.

“Now when the dust settles it may be that there will be more money spent on Yu Darvish than there has been on any other pitcher during the course of this winter because of course as we saw with the Daisuke Matsuzaka situation, the Red Sox initially had to post 51 million dollars just to talk to him.”

Olney adds that baseball executives are saying that there will be a greater investment required to get Darvish than there was for Matsuzaka. But who’s interested? Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports has the answer.

“There are the early favorites: the Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays, both of whom have scouted Darvish heavily, both of whom have money to spend, both of whom could use a top-of-the-rotation starter. There are the usual suspects: the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, who last forayed into the Japanese marketplace with Daisuke Matsuzaka and Kei Igawa, respectively.”

The 6’5”, 220-pound righty has a repertoire that includes a low to mid 90’s fastball and a devastating slider that comes in at different speeds with different arm angles. Joe Lemaire of Sports Illustrated says Darvish really likes that slider.

“Overall, Darvish throws so many breaking balls that he, almost literally, wrote the book on the matter. He was credited as the editorial supervisor on a "mook" -- a book/magazine hybrid -- entitled Yu Darvish's Breaking Pitch Bible.”

Last season, the 25 year-old posted an 18-6 record to go along with a 1.44 ERA and 276 strikeouts. Darvish would return to Japan if he cannot come to terms with the highest bidder after the 30-day negotiating period.