Former Yankees ace enduring worst season of career in NPB

Masahiro Tanaka has carried the weight of high expectations throughout his career. Exceeding them has never been much of an issue, but the right-hander is enduring the worst season of his professional career in 2023. 

Tanaka has enjoyed a decorated career. The first overall pick in the 2006 NPB Draft, Tanaka immediately joined the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles rotation and saw success as an 18-year-old, posting a 3.82 ERA and winning 11 games while throwing 186.1 innings. He started the All-Star Game and won the NPB equivalent to the Rookie of the Year Award. 

Over the next seven years, he continued to dominate Japanese baseball, including a historic 2013 season in which he went 24-0 with a 1.27 ERA and 0.943 WHIP in 212 IP. Tanaka took home his second Eiji Sawamura Award (NPB's Cy Young) and was named the league's MVP. 

Following the success at Japan's highest level, Tanaka joined the New York Yankees. The team paid the Eagles a $20M posting fee and reached an agreement with Tanaka on a seven-year, $155M contract. Once again, Tanaka produced, posting a 3.74 ERA and 1.13 WHIP in more than 1,000 innings of work for the Yankees over the life of the contract. He made two All-Star appearances and won 78 regular-season games for New York (plus five more in the postseason). 

Tanaka dominated the NPB and was successful in MLB. With his contract up — and the Yankees reportedly unwilling to guarantee the money he was seeking — he returned to Japan following the 2020 season, re-signing with Rakuten on a two-year deal that, at the time, made him the highest-paid pitcher in NPB history. 

The results since have been very un-Tanaka-like. This year things have taken an even steeper dive.