According to BrooksBaseball.com, Masahiro Tanaka’s repertoire can be classified into six pitches. We all know about his splitter, the best of its kind in the game. His slider is somewhat less recognized but equally effective, boasting a whiff rate of 15.6% in 2018. After that, things don’t look as good.
Tanaka’s four-seam fastball has long been his Achilles’ heel due to its merely average velocity and lack of rise; hitters slugged .594 off it while only whiffing 6.50% of the time in 2018. His cutter hasn’t fared much better, yielding more whiffs (11.