New York Yankees: Masahiro Tanaka may be staying in the Bronx after all
By Jason Burke
The New York Yankees are in the midst of a five game losing streak with the last three “L’s” coming against the Oakland Athletics, the worst team in the American League. Saturday’s loss was hung on Masahiro Tanaka, who could be sticking around the Bronx for the duration of his contract instead of opting out this winter.
Since the season began there has been some talk of the free agent class that will be hitting the market this offseason with Jake Arrieta and Marco Estrada along with players like Johnny Cueto and Masahiro Tanaka able to opt-out of their contracts. It has been a forgone conclusion that Cueto and Tanaka would exercise their options and go after a bigger payday.
Then Tanaka started struggling. After yesterday’s game, the 28-year-old is 5-7 with a 6.34 ERA. His FIP is lower than his ERA, but only by about a half of a run, so he’s not getting screwed too hard by his defense. Add in the recent injury history of Tanaka, and the free agent market could be a bit tepid.
The question for Tanaka and his agent will, and has always boiled down to: Can he make more money by opting out this winter than by sticking with the deal that he’s currently under? With the struggles he’s having, that is becoming a very good question indeed.
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He’s set to make $22MM in each of the next two seasons, and $23MM in 2020 for a total of $67M. While that isn’t exactly Zack Greinke money, it’s still not too shabby. It’s also about what a three WAR per year player would make, which is actually just about what he’s been on average during his first three and a half seasons. Using the Baseball Reference totals, Tanaka put up a 3.3 WAR in 2014, 3.0 in ’15 and a 5.4 last season. He has then counteracted that with a -0.6 (before Saturday’s start) so far this season.
Without this season being included, Tanaka has been roughly a four WAR pitcher each season, which would mean a slight upgrade in pay if one WAR equals roughly $8M. The problem for his camp now is whether or not they bet on themselves, namely a pitcher that has struggled, has injury concerns, and is approaching 30, or stick with what they have on the table and continue to play for a team that will likely be in contention.
The other difficult part of this is his age. If Tanaka were to play out his contract with the Yankees, he’s be set to enter his age 32 season when he’s eligible to sign his next contract, and a giant bag of cash isn’t going to be awaiting him then as it potentially could have been this winter.
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The one way out of this quagmire would be to go out in the second half and turn things completely around, thereby earning a bigger contract this winter. If he doesn’t, this is going to be a fascinating story to follow.