The New York Yankees have a few question marks heading into Spring Training this season. Starting pitching is by far the most urgent, and it begins with Masahiro Tanaka. He will be entering his third season in MLB, and needs to step up.
Since coming over from Japan Tanaka has pitched well, but just not always like the ace that the Yankees had hoped for. He has a 25-12 record with a 3.16 ERA over 44 big league starts. They are very good numbers, but not the numbers expected from a player who makes $22 million. By comparison, David Price made almost $11 million less in the past two seasons, and won eight more games. Dallas Keuchel is 32-17 over the past two years, and made just over a million dollars.
Tanaka has missed starts in both seasons and had that partial tear in his UCL. Luckily he was able to rehab it and make most of his starts last season, but it could go at any moment.
He is also 27 years old, meaning he should be reaching his prime now. Only C.C. Sabathia and Ivan Nova are older, leaving Tanaka in the middle of the rotation. Sabathia is at the tail end of his career and is basically the mentor now. Nova is fighting for a spot in the rotation. The kids, Michael Pineda, Luis Severino and Nathan Eovaldi appear to be safe for now. Tanaka needs to be the leader of this group, which is something that he’s been on and off with.
They need him to be the mid-2015 Tanaka who won three consecutive starts, while going at least seven innings and not giving up more than three runs. Or the 2014 Tanaka who was 12-4 before landing on the disabled list would also help. They cannot have the wild card game Tanaka who went just five innings, gave up a home run to Colby Rasmus in the second inning and put the team in an early hole.
Tanaka needs to have a good spring training and earn the trust of everyone as the ace. If he does that, he then needs to pitch mostly lights out if the Yankees have any shot at the postseason. The lineup will hit, and the bullpen is expected to be one of the best ever. It is the starting rotation that is up in the air right now. Tanaka can ease all of that by emerging as the ace he is paid to be.
