There’s a mystery team in on Yu Darvish

Yu Darvish, one of the “Big Four” of remaining free-agent starting pitchers (along with Jake Arrieta, Alex Cobb and Lance Lynn), has been considering five teams:

We’ve pretty much known about all of those clubs for a while now; if the Astros do eventually complete the rumored trade for Gerrit Cole, that would probably eliminate them from this list.

Late Wednesday, though, we learned that there’s another team in the mix, the traditional “mystery team.” The source is one no one can refute:

Clearly, Darvish knows how to play this game.

Who could the “one more team” be? I suppose the Dodgers, for whom Darvish played the last two months of 2017, could be that team, although L.A. (along with the Cubs) has been said to want to stay under the luxury tax limit this year, and that would probably put them out of the Darvish Derby.

Maybe it’s a team like the Diamondbacks. Arizona came out of nowhere to sign Zack Greinke a couple of winters ago and they’re not anywhere close to the luxury tax limit.

Meanwhile, Paul Sullivan wonders whether the Cubs might pull off a convention surprise, as they did in 2012 when Kerry Wood was brought back on a one-year deal and was introduced at the convention to a large ovation.

You can be sure that if the Cubs don’t announce a signing before Saturday’s session with Theo & Jed, that it will be the No. 1 topic of conversation in that session.

And this front office is pretty good at keeping things under wraps. It would not surprise me at all if they had a surprise announcement at the opening ceremony Friday evening.