Players · T · Pitcher · 2020 regular season

Masahiro Tanaka

Age: 32
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 2"
Weight: 214 lb

Born: November 1, 1988 in Itami, Japan
MLB debut: April 4, 2014

dbWAR: 15.8
IP: 48.0
ERA: 3.56
FIP: 4.42
K/9: 8.3
FIP−: 99

Masahiro Tanaka was a starting pitcher for the New York Yankees. In 2020 he struck out 44 batters over 48.0 innings across 10 appearances, 10 of them starts, going 3-3. His ERA of 3.56 was 20.0% lower than the league average of 4.45 — 6th of 12 on his team, and 140th of 323 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 4.42 FIP suggests that his ERA had some help behind him. He missed bats on 29.7% of swings (15.3% of every pitch he threw), walked 4.1% of the batters he faced and struck out 22.3%. His 0.7 dbWAR is built from that FIP rather than runs allowed, so it credits him for what he controls and not for the defence behind him.

League context

Percentile among qualified pitchers, 2020 regular season.

FIP4.42

K/98.3

WHIP1.17

WAR.7

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2020	NYY	10	10	48.0	3	3	48	19	44	8	3.56	4.42	1.17	8.3	1.5	80	99	0.7
2019	NYY	32	31	182.0	11	9	186	90	149	40	4.45	4.27	1.24	7.4	2.0	99	95	2.4
2018	NYY	27	27	156.0	12	6	141	65	159	35	3.75	4.01	1.13	9.2	2.0	90	97	2.3
2017	NYY	30	30	178.1	13	12	180	94	194	41	4.74	4.34	1.24	9.8	2.1	109	100	2.2
2016	NYY	31	31	199.2	14	4	179	68	165	36	3.07	3.51	1.08	7.4	1.6	73	84	4.0
2015	NYY	24	24	154.0	12	7	126	60	139	27	3.51	3.98	0.99	8.1	1.6	89	101	1.8
2014	NYY	20	20	136.1	13	5	123	42	141	21	2.77	3.04	1.06	9.3	1.4	74	81	2.7

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2019	NYY	1	1	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	0.0%	.000	-0.3	-126	-0.0
2018	NYY	3	6	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	16.7%	.000	-1.5	-116	-0.1
2017	NYY	1	3	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000	—	0.0%	66.7%	.000	-0.8	-121	-0.0
2016	NYY	1	2	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000	—	0.0%	100.0%	.000	-0.5	-116	-0.0
2015	NYY	3	8	0	1	2	.000	.125	.000	.000	.000	12.5%	25.0%	.089	-1.4	-60	-0.0
2014	NYY	3	9	1	0	5	.111	.111	.111	.000	.250	0.0%	55.6%	.100	-1.5	-52	-0.0

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason pitching

Postseason Masahiro Tanaka's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	GS	IP	W	L	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2020 Post	NYY	Postseason total	2	2	8.0	0	1	13	11	2	4	7	12.38	2.13	7.9
		Wild Card	1	1	4.0	0	0	5	6	0	3	3	13.50	2.00	6.8
		ALDS	1	1	4.0	0	1	8	5	2	1	4	11.25	2.25	9.0
2019 Post	NYY	Postseason total	3	3	16.0	2	1	8	4	1	4	12	2.25	0.75	6.8
		ALDS	1	1	5.0	1	0	3	1	0	1	7	1.80	0.80	12.6
		ALCS	2	2	11.0	1	1	5	3	1	3	5	2.45	0.73	4.1
2018 Post	NYY	ALDS	1	1	5.0	1	0	3	1	1	1	4	1.80	0.80	7.2
2017 Post	NYY	Postseason total	3	3	20.0	2	1	10	2	0	3	18	0.90	0.65	8.1
		ALDS	1	1	7.0	1	0	3	0	0	1	7	0.00	0.57	9.0
		ALCS	2	2	13.0	1	1	7	2	0	2	11	1.38	0.69	7.6
2015 Post	NYY	Wild Card	1	1	5.0	0	1	4	2	2	3	3	3.60	1.40	5.4
Career		Postseason total · 5 Octobers	10	10	54.0	5	4	38	20	6	15	44	3.33	0.98	7.3

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How left- and right-handed hitters fare against him.

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2020. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHB	101	96	18	6	4	24	.188	.228	.427	.275	23.8%
vs RHB	96	91	30	3	4	20	.330	.365	.484	.367	20.8%

Pitch sequencing

What Masahiro Tanaka throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

SliderSplitterFour-seamSinkerCurveball

Select a count to see exactly what Masahiro Tanaka throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.

Season


Slider	37.7%	290	84.0	2,280	55.2%	40.6%	77	.260	.725
Splitter	24.8%	191	87.1	1,578	38.2%	23.0%	59	.203	.627
Four-Seam Fastball	24.1%	185	92.3	2,230	43.2%	30.1%	37	.351	1.033
Sinker	7.5%	58	91.5	2,116	32.8%	3.6%	14	—	—
Curveball	5.9%	45	75.0	2,369	66.7%	7.7%	1	—	—

Masahiro Tanaka's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters. BAA and OPS are what hitters did against each pitch, credited to the one that ended the plate appearance, and are left blank under 15 at-bats.

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Masahiro Tanaka

Similar players

Nearest 2020 seasons by command, run prevention and role, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Nathan EovaldiBOS

ERA: 3.72
FIP: 3.87
SO: 52
WAR: 1.0

Very close

Deivi GarcíaNYY

ERA: 4.98
FIP: 4.15
SO: 33
WAR: 0.6

Very close

Merrill KellyAZ

ERA: 2.59
FIP: 3.99
SO: 29
WAR: 0.6

Adam WainwrightSTL

ERA: 3.15
FIP: 4.11
SO: 54
WAR: 1.1

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.