Is Darvish enough to keep Rangers on top?

The Texas Rangers now have more than $111 million invested in Yu Darvish, a guy who has never thrown a pitch against MLB competition.

Smart? Only time will tell.

But it was a move the Rangers needed to make to try to keep pace (and face) after their AL West rival Los Angeles Angels swooped in to snare free-agent prize Albert Pujols along with top southpaw C.J. Wilson.

Will it be enough? Even if Darvish comes in and wins 20 games, Texas needs an awful lot to go well with its mound corps to claim its third-consecutive division title.

Manager Ron Washington and pitching coach Mike Maddux might find repairing the psyches of their starting pitchers the most difficult challenge entering the season. After all, Neftali Feliz will move to the starting rotation after a monumental Game 6 meltdown that literally cost the Rangers a championship. The team had no choice but to move Feliz to the rotation because of the psychological damage done in that disastrous loss.

The rotation also will count on Alexi Ogando, who was a complete train wreck in the World Series. Ogando had 13 wins in 29 starts during the regular season before moving to the bullpen for the playoffs, but is his confidence now shaken beyond repair?

Lefty Derek Holland appears to be the only sure thing after a 16-win regular season and a stellar showing in the World Series. But he's young and getting real national exposure for the first time. Will he listen to the hype? How much of a distraction will it be for the kid?

Veteran Colby Lewis only occasionally shows flashes of brilliance; most of the time he's pedestrian at best. Matt Harrison is the other option for the rotation, but Buster Olney this week reported that if the Rangers inked Darvish, Harrison was likely the odd man out of the starting group.

My hunch is that Darvish will post somewhere near the 15 wins that Daisuke Matsuzaka got in his first year in MLB. But I don't see Feliz, with his mental baggage, making a smooth transition to the rotation, and Ogando will be fortunate to duplicate his 2011 starting numbers (and might be back in the bullpen by May).

And that means the Rangers -- short of shocking the world and opening the checkbook for Prince Fielder, too -- probably don't have enough to keep up with the Angels in the AL West.