Yankees avoided costly offseason mistake with this ex-ace

Remember the reported Yankees interest in Yu Darvish? That move would have been a huge mistake.

Sometimes the best deals are the ones you don’t make.

During last offseason, one thing was pretty clear around the Yankees: The team needed to find starting pitching.

From Gerrit Cole rumors to the lead-up to a summer of connections to Chris Archer and Michael Fulmer, everyone around baseball realized the Yankees were probably a starting pitcher or two shy of legitimate World Series contention.

One of the names that was rumored to be on the Yankees radar last winter: Yu Darvish.

Every Yankees fan should be breathing a sigh of relief right now because nothing with the former Rangers ace came to fruition.

On Tuesday, the Cubs shut Darvish down for the season with a stress reaction in his elbow.

MRI shows a stress reaction on right elbow and triceps strain for Yu Darvish and he’ll be shut down for six weeks and miss the rest of the season.

— Sahadev Sharma (@sahadevsharma) August 21, 2018

Due to injuries and ineffectiveness since the start of the year, Darvish will finish his first season of a mega deal with the following numbers: 1-3, 4.95 ERA, 40 IP, 49 SO, 1.425 WHIP.

Darvish signed a six-year, $126M deal during the offseason to replace Jake Arrieta as the veteran atop Chicago’s rotation.

Stanton opens up

With no offseason deal for a star in tow, the Yankees took a patchwork rotation into the regular season. Despite falling far behind the Red Sox, the Yankees have had an excellent season, added J.A. Happ at the trade deadline and kept the luxury tax line clean for a reset after the 2018 campaign.

Joe Giglio may be reached at jgiglio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoeGiglioSports. Find NJ.com on Facebook.