New York Yankees: The dramatic improvement of Masahiro Tanaka
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
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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.
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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.