The night before Yu Darvish threw the final rehab pitch of his painful and uncomfortable 2018 season, I was at Wrigley Field, behind Jed Hoyer at a Pearl Jam concert.
While I woke up early and hungover to drive to South Bend, Indiana, Hoyer, then the GM and now the president of baseball operations, said he would watch Darvish’s outing from home, probably hungover too.
I’m not sure how slow his internet connection was, but I believe I was the one who told him the news via text that Cubs coach Matt Johnson was investigating Darvish in the second inning of that start. Darvish would leave the August 19 match and return in 2019.
And now Hoyer should be feeling sick for just trading Darvish in a deal that predicts a rough 2021 season, and maybe beyond, for the Cubs.
At the time of writing, Darvish is being traded to the San Diego Padres in a classic present and future deal. The Cubs are back in the rebuild game. They…