New York Yankees: The dramatic improvement of Masahiro Tanaka
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.