2023 Padres Season Review: Yu Darvish

2023 Regular Season Statistics

2.4 fWAR, 24 G, 136.1 IP, 4.56 ERA, 1.298 WHIP, 141 K, 43 BB, 18 HR, 8 HBP

Positives From This Season

There were definitely times where Yu Darvish looked like the Yu Darvish we saw a lot last season. There were plenty of outings where he went 6 or 7 innings, as the 37-year-old started 11 games where he went six or more innings and allowed two or fewer earned runs.

Negatives From This Season

He just wasn’t as consistently dominant as he and the Padres were expecting him to be fresh off of receiving what now seems like a questionable six-year extension worth north of $100 million.

Darvish allowed four or more runs in 11 outings this season, which essentially cancels out all of the great outings he had considering how disappointing the offense was this season. When he allowed more than four runs, the offense wasn’t coming back. The Padres ended up with a 9-15 record in games Darvish started, which obviously isn’t good enough when he’s supposed to be one of the aces in the rotation.

Then Darvish was dealing with a bone spur in his throwing elbow, which made him shut it down well before the season ended. To make matters worse we don’t even know if Darvish is going to need surgery or not yet to get his elbow back to where it needs to be.

The Padres still owe him $78 million over the next five seasons. There could be three starters missing from this year’s rotation next year which makes Darvish’s health even more important.