New York Yankees: The dramatic improvement of Masahiro Tanaka

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(Photo by Rob Tringali/MLB Photos via Getty Images) /

The New York Yankees are seeing a better version of Masahiro Tanaka than they had before.

There is no question that Luis Severino is the New York Yankees ace. Behind Severino, however, the Yankees do have one starting pitcher who I believe showed last year he is finally ready to tap into his legitimate ace-level potential. None other than the $155M man from Japan, Masahiro Tanaka.

After years of being a solid somewhat-above-average starter in the rotation (he averaged just over 2.6-WAR across 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018), he showed signs of finally breaking out last year, even though his 2018 season did not begin well at all. In his first 12 starts, he pitched 67.2 innings, and while his 1.138 WHIP was ahis one solid standalone metric.

However, his 2.0 HR/9, 21.1 HR/FB, 4.79 ERA/5.10 FIP, and 34% hard contact were concerningly subpar. One primary concern with Tanaka, especially in recent years, has been his fastball. On rare occasions last year, he touched 95 MPH with his four-seam fastball. More broadly, however, he’ll sit between 90-93 MPH – according to Brooks Baseball, he averaged 92.6 with his heater across the aforementioned 12 start stretch.

This relatively low velocity, especially in coordination with the limited movement of the pitch, is among the reasons why he only threw them in 10.76% of his pitches between 2016-17. Thus, it’s somewhat confounding and inexplicable that his fastball usage skyrocketed to 20.5% in his first 12 starts of 2018., which resulted in opposing hitters combining to hit .317 with a monstrous .561 slugging percentage off 198 Tanaka fastballs in that span. The absolute value of his fastball’s horizontal movement also decreased by 0.81 inches, which was over a 14% decline.

By June 2 of last year, there was frustration surrounding Tanaka from many a New York Yankees fan, particularly the sect of the base that has the combo of both passion and a Twitter account. Sure, he was a solid pitcher, but his 8.61 K/9, 3.67 ERA/3.87 FIP, 1.37 HR/9, and other good but not elite career metrics through that day – compared to his historic dominance in Nippon Professional Baseball – had Pinstripe faithful desiring more.

It seemed growingly realistic that his once boundless ceiling may never be reached; his kryptonite a hodgepodge of underwhelming velocity, continued bites from the injury bug, finishing the season a 30-year-old veteran, and the still-lofty expectations that come at the crossroads of The Bronx and the $150-million-starting-pitcher territory (a club that boasts only seven other members).

Alas, a funny thing happened sometime thereafter. He left that 13th start early, after facing just
16 batters despite completing five innings, allowing a run on a hit and a walk while striking out eight batters. It was revealed that he departed due to injury. He would be shut down and not see another start until July 10, which I won’t count in the “resurgence” stats because, again, he hadn’t pitched in a month.

From there, however, he caught fire for his final 11 starts covering 71 innings. In that time, he allowed 17 runs on 61 hits and 13 walks, while striking out 74 batters. This included road games in Boston, Cleveland, and Tampa Bay. He went at least six innings in nine out of those 11 outings, and only once allowed more than 2 ER.

Tanaka started off this season for the New York Yankees picking up where he left off, pitching 5.2 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 0 BB and 5 K. As I write this, he’s started this season going 18.1 IP, 17 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, and 15 K in three starts. Fact: Tanaka, since coming back from injury, is doing some of the best pitching of his MLB career. That being said, it begs the question: what changed so suddenly to turn “Ma-kun” from the mid-rotation starter who posted totals between 2.3-2.9 WAR in four of his first five seasons but had a maddening susceptibility to sacrificing the long ball, into someone pitching like a legitimate ace at the age of 30.

(Photo by Paul Bereswill/Getty Images) /

Step 1: Dropped the S(t)inker

Credit: Brooks Baseball

It’s no secret that Masahiro Tanaka’s sinker is one of the weaker offerings in his arsenal. From the beginning of the 2014 season through July 10, 2018, he threw the pitch 18.37% of the time. Since then, however, he drastically decreased his usage, and only relies on it 4.22% of the time. When delving deeper, it’s not difficult to see why. Off the 2098 attempts throwing the sinker in that first span, hitters mashed .310 with a .510 SLG. These numbers were a deciding factor into Tanaka’s decision to almost eliminate the sinking arrow from his pitching quiver, and has only thrown it 61 times in the 16 starts since dating back to July 15, 2018.

Step 2: Location, Location, Location

More from Call to the Pen

Though the variance in his release angles for each pitch type are negligibly different between
spans, it’s interesting to look at the difference in location between his pitches before July 10, 2018
versus after that date. Prior, 40.26% of his pitches were located “low-out-of-the-zone”. Since, that
percentage was a more impressive 46.23%.

Six out of 100 pitches may not seem like a lot – however, when realizing that he threw 2476 pitches in 27 starts (averaging 91.7 pitches per start), this impacts about five or six of his pitches on average per start. It might be a factor in why he went from 5.5 innings per start in his first 14 starts, to 6.5 per start in his final 13, meaning relievers were asked to throw 49 innings in his starts in that first stint vs. 32.5 in the second.

Step 3: Keeping it on the Ground

Through July 10 last year, Tanaka had allowed an unsightly 20.7% home-run-per-flyball
percentage, and just 45.0% of batted balls off of him stayed on the ground. He has drastically adjusted this since, having just 13% of his flyballs leaving the park and his groundball rate increasing to 50.4%. Continuing to put more emphasis on his slider and split-finger usage to flank his moving fastball should help going forward to ensure his arsenal has three diverse strong offerings to make up for his lack of four-seam heat.

Whether or not Tanaka has truly finally turned the corner will be revealed by his performance for the New York Yankees henceforth. That being said, removing the sinker and tinkering with his pitch arsenal, his improved location to lower in the zone instead of middle-in, being healthy, and being able to move his fastball to compensate for the lack of heat, have already begun to show improved results that bring Tanaka further from that 2-3 WAR starter.

Next. Yankees add depth with Miller. dark

Now, he is getting closer to being that 4-5 WAR bona-fide #1-to #2-level starter the New York Yankees dreamt on when committing over $150 million to him five years ago.

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