LondonSox said:
If he's building arm strength and has a partial UCL tear, and your chances this season depend to a reasonable extent on this guy being able to stay healthy why would you pitch him?
He's fine he just isn't ready to go yet, so you put him out there versus one of the best lineups in baseball because?
I mean, I'm guessing to an extent, but I think it's a combination of things:
1) Communication between Tanaka and NY is less than ideal, as is the case for many Japanese players. I don't think it's terrible, it's just not perfect.
2) He is essentially revamping the way he wants to pitch and needs to go against big league hitters in real games to make that work, extended spring training games won't really help much.
3) Arm strength is probably not really the issue, since he is throwing his splitter at 87, at least any more than it is for most pitchers who aren't really in mid-summer form in the first week of April. Since the splitter is his best pitch, maybe that is the pitch to keep an eye on for his velocity.
I think maybe the main reason Tanaka is possibly a pretty unusual case is that (keeping in mind he still has only about a half season total sample size in MLB) the harder he throws, the straighter it is and the more it gets hammered. This was again the case Monday when the hardest pitch he threw (93) got roped into RF for a two run single by Martin.
So I think despite the fact that it obviously gives him less margin for error, he still feels his best shot at success going forward is to try to work at 91 or 92 but with increased movement. Honestly I think that the UCL tear is pretty much a non-issue for him at this point, and he would be attempting this transition anyway. No pitcher wants to cut down the potential range of their velocity if at all possible, but I think Tanaka has understandably decided that he needs to at least try and maybe it's his best chance for success going forward.