“Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails he makes us wait
And we wait without Yu

With or without Yu
With or without Yu”

                                                                             - Lyrics (with slight revision) of a popular U2 song

After ducking and coyly answering questions about whether the New York Yankees have any interest in Japanese pitching star Yu Darvish, general manager Brian Cashman will finally have to lay his cards on the table on Wednesday by 5 p.m. Eastern time.

That is the deadline for all teams who are interested in Darvish’s services have to come up with what is called a posting (or bid) to the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, the team for which Darvish has toiled since he was 18. That bid goes from the team with the highest bid to the Fighters and it only earns the team a 30-day window to negotiate a contract for Darvish. If the team fails to agree with Darvish on a contract the posting money is returned to the American team and Darvish remains with the Fighters for another season.

For all the successes some Japanese players have had in America (Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui and Hideo Nomo) there have also been some monumental failures (Hideki Irabu, Kei Igawa and to some degree Daisuke Matsuzaka). So on which side of this equation does Darvish fit?

Scouts who have been watching him the past six years have seen a skinny 6-foot-5 right-hander mature into a 220-pound dynamo. On the world stage at the Olympics and the 2009 World Baseball Classic, Darvish has shined, winning the Most Valuable Player Award for Japan’s winning WBC team.

In his seven seasons with Nippon Ham he is 93-28 and since 2007 he has recorded ERAs below 2.00 in five consecutive seasons. In 2011, he was 18-6 with a 1.44 and 276 strikeouts and only 36 walks in 232 innings.

He throws in the mid-90s on his fastball and he throws both a two-seam and four-seam variety along with a cutter. He has three breaking pitches and some believe he throws a decent changeup. But unlike Matsuzaka, who throws pitches off the plate to get batters to swing, Darvish attacks the strike zone and is confident in his ability to get batters out.

Will the talents of Darvish translate to American baseball?

New Boston Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine, who managed for six years in Japan, certainly knows Darvish well and likes what he has seen of him. The Yankees have scouted him and Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels has seen him pitch in person.

But no club is willing to say out loud they are interested in bidding for Darvish because they know that will only drive up the price of the posting. In 2006, the Red Sox bid $51 million to the Seibu Lions for Matsuzaka. They later signed him to a six-year, $52 million contract.

The posting for Darvish could very well easily eclipse the $51 million Seibu received from the Red Sox. Some say that the absence of quality pitching in the American free-agent market this winter gives teams an opportunity to sign what could potentially be a No. 1 starter for less money than the Angels paid to sign Rangers left-hander C.J. Wilson.

The reason is the posting fee does not count toward a team’s payroll. The only money that counts is the money paid to Darvish. Because Darvish is just 25, a team could structure a long-term graduated contracte that pays Darvish about $10 million the first season and up to about $15 million in the final season. Wilson is being paid $20 million per season by the Angels. So Darvish actually could be a bargain at half the money the first season.

There are also many teams who can’t afford to get into the bidding in the first place due to payroll issues. The Boston Red Sox, for one, are out the bidding because they need to re-sign free agent David Ortiz and his contract will put them perilously close to the $178 million mark in which the luxury tax kicks in. New Red Sox GM Ben Cherington said the Red Sox will not raise their payroll past that level so Darvish will not be a target.

The Angels seem pretty much tapped out after their signings of Wilson and first baseman Albert Pujols. The Marlins have also spent a lot on closer Heath Bell, shortstop Jose Reyes and starter Mark Buerhle.

So just where are the Yankees in all this?

They have spent only $5.5 million to re-sign free-agent starter Freddy Garcia and $2.5 million for the rights to Japanese infielder Hiroyuki Nakajima of the Seibu Lions.

Though Cashman looked at the free-agents starters available, he determined that their cost was much more than he thought they were worth. It was, by far, not a buyers’ market for such limited talent available.

So Cashman spent the Winter Meetings last week trying to gauge the availability of starting pitchers via the trade route and came up empty again. He looked at possible deals for pitchers such as Gio Gonzalez of the Athletics, Matt Garza of the Cubs, Jair Jurrgens of the Braves and John Danks of the White Sox.

But each time he asked teams what they wanted in return the names of the Yankees’ best prospects such as catcher Jesus Monetro, pitchers Dellin Betances and Manny Banuelos or outfielder Mason Williams came up. Cashman seems loathe to deal away the best prizes of the minor-league system the Yankees have rebuilt over the past five years.

There also was interest in some homegrown Yankee major leaguers such as Brett Gardner, Eduardo Nunez, Phil Hughes, David Robertson and Phil Hughes. But Cashman did not want to go there either.

So just how interested could the Yankees be in Darvish?

My gut feeling is very interested.

The reason is that unlike trades, a free-agent signing means you can keep your young talent. In addition, with the signing of a Japanese pitcher like Darvish the Yankees do not lose a draft pick like when they sign a Type A free agent stateside. Keeping the farm system intact and not having to surrender a draft pick for Darvish appears to be win-win situation for Cashman.

The fact that teams like the Red Sox and Angels are out of the bidding also seems to bode well. The only teams strongly rumored to be interested in Darvish are the Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays. The Yankees simply have more financial resources to put toward a bid than those teams. It is a question of just how much of a bid do the Yankees put forward.

The $51 million bid the Red Sox made for Matsuzaka shocked Cashman, who was believed to have bid a little more than half that amount. But the Red Sox were desperate for pitching and they wanted to ensure they would not lose out to the “Evil Empire” that stole Cuban star Jose Contreras away from them years earlier.

This posting looks to be definitely different. There has been less hype and teams have been very circumspect in their public statements.

But if Cashman really wants Darvish, it stands to reason he will be able to convince Hank and Hal Steinbrenner to provide the cash it will take to get it done.

With the time difference in Japan it likely won’t be until Thursday before we find out something about Darvish. The team ownership of the Fighters have four days to accept the highest bid. But I don’t think it will be that long before we hear who has submitted the high bid.

For the sake of Yankee fans, let’s hope that Caahman is the man with the biggest grin this week. Yankee fans need to see some movement towards improving the team for 2012 and Darvish could be the one piece of the puzzle that gets the team just a bit closer to the goal of winning their 28th world championship.

The key to that is pitching, pitching and more pitching. Right now the Yankees just have pitching.

But I can just hear Yankee fans rising in their seats and shouting through the Bronx night air “Yu, Yu, Yu.” Music to my ears!