Pride of the Pinstripes: Vol. 5
It's Tanaka time! Throughout his career, many people have criticized Masahiro Tanaka for not being an ace, claiming he is a #2 guy in a rotation at best. Why? I'll throw some stats at you. Through three years in the bigs, Tanaka has posted a 39-16 record and a 3.12 ERA. Who do we consider our aces today? We think of Mad Bum, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer. Although Tanaka has a much smaller sample size, he has won 71% of his decisions. This compares to 68% by Kershaw, 64% for Scherzer and 60% for Mad Bum. Conclusion: Masahiro Tanaka will win games a lot more than he'll lose. The problem with Tanaka has been his innings pitched. Too many times as Yankees fans we've seen him go 5 or 6 innings and then hand the game over to the bullpen. In order to win games, the Yankees will need him to go the distance at times, or at least last 7 or 8 innings to save the arms in the pen. If Tanaka can locate his pitches, this will not be hard to accomplish. On average. Tanaka strikes out 148 batters a year, which is about 8 per 9 innings. This is not a bad number, but not at the top of the ranks either. Not striking out batters can help a pitcher go longer in games, as it preserves pitch count. If Tanaka can control his fastball early in the count and get batters to bite at his splitter with two strikes, he can combat walking too many batters. Tanaka is more of a fly ball pitcher, which can hurt him at a hitting park like Yankee Stadium. Burying the splitter low in the zone will be needed for groundballs to become more frequent.
Spring training stats don't necessarily mean anything, but Tanaka's are hard to ignore. In his four spring training appearances, Tanaka has tossed 13 1/2 innings without allowing a single run. In addition, he has struck out 13 batters over his last two outings and only walked 2 this spring. The splitter has been filthy, looking overpowering in his 4 1/3 innings outing against Detroit, where he struck out 6 and did not allow a single hit last Friday. The relief of Tanaka, Jordan Montgomery and Chasen Shreve, also did not allow a hit, capping a combined no-hitter. Gary Sanchez, who caught Tanaka, said the splitter is "the key to his success". Tanaka, never satisfied, said “I thought I wasn’t at my best, but considering that, I was able to put up some zeroes,” he said, adding his slider and fastball location were “all over the place.” If Tanaka can combat these self-prescribed control issues, he can develop into a top-tier ace this season.