This was a season of highs for Masahiro Tanaka. In his fourth year in the majors, the bottom seemingly fell out on the Yankees’ ace, and he had his worst year yet. He had a career-high in ERA, FIP, walk rate, and home run rate. Given that this was the season before his opt out kicked in, his performance was supposed to be key. In the end, it was, just not in the way we all expected.
Tanaka looked all set to begin 2017 after a 2016 season that saw him place seventh in the Cy Young Award votes.