Who Is Masahiro Tanaka?

If you've been paying attention to the baseball offseason, you've probably heard the name Masahiro Tanaka come up. What you may not know is who exactly that is? Japanese Emperor? Latest character in a popular anime cartoon? No, the correct answer is he's the most recent hyped Japanese pitcher. Before we go further, let's get a few things out of the way: No, he does not throw a 'gyroball', no he will not throw 200 pitches in a game, and no he cannot morph into a dragon and start spitting fire at batters. So, what's all the fuss about?

Tanaka is a 25 year old starting pitcher for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of the Nippon Professional Baseball league. Tanaka is eligible for international free agency via the posting system that brought Daisuke Matsuzaka and most recently Yu Darvish to America to play ball. The posting system requires teams to submit a bid for the right to negotiate with the player, and then they must come to terms within an alotted time frame. You may remember the Red Sox winning bid for Matsuzaka in 2006 was $51.11 million, and the club would then shell out another $52 million for a six year contract. Darvish was posted in 2011 and the winning bid presented by the Rangers amounted to $51.7 million, and they proceeded to ink Darvish to a $60 million 6 year contract. Current estimates are that the winning bid for Tanaka could reach upwards of $70-$75 million, and he  expects to command a deal in excess of the $60 million Darvish received. 

So who is Tanaka more likely to take after, Matsuzaka or Darvish? Matsuzaka was a top draft pick into the NPB out of high school, and had a successful career in the league. His career numbers are a 108-60 record, 2.95 ERA, with 1,355 strikeouts. What drove Matsuzaka fever through the roof in 2006 was his dominating MVP performance in the World Baseball Classic. Matsuzaka had a good year in 2008 for Boston but participated again in the WBC the following year and never seemed the same. Darvish was received with similar fanfare, being hailed as the best in Japan at the time. His NPB career stats include a 93-38 record, 1.99 ERA, and 1,259 strikeouts. He was clearly a dominating pitcher there, and so far has displayed much of the same talent here. 

The signings by teams of these Japanese stars are dangerous to say the least. There has been several cautionary tales: see Hideki Irabu (RIP) and Kei Igawa. Irabu was famously referred to as a "fat toad" by George Steinbrenner on his way to a career 34-35 record and 5.15 ERA. Igawa represented a huge waste of money by the Yankees as they paid over $46 million to retain his services, which ultimately was a career 6.66 ERA. So while pursuing Tanaka is a gamble, here are the facts we do know:

 -Tanaka was rookie of the year in 2007 and hasn't slowed down since

-Tanaka's career stats: 99-35 2.30 ERA 1,238 strikeouts. This puts him somewhere between Darvish and Matsuzaka

- he finished 2013 24-0 with a 1.27 ERA

- In 5 playoff starts he threw 4 complete games, including a 160 pitch effort in game 6 of the championship series, then came back to get the save in game 7.

This last feat is what should cause teams to think twice prior to making such a big commitment to the Japanese star. There is a lot of fear he could breakdown much in the mold of Matsuzaka before him. Nonetheless there will be a handful of teams lining up to submit a bid when the time comes. Expect the usual big players to get involved: Dodgers, Yankees. Also the Rangers and Angels will likely make some kind of play.