Montana Fan said:
Given the amount his salary is actually subsidized by the state (tax payer funded stadiums for example) I think a professional baseball player has little to complain about.
Rosenthal: Tanaka signs with Yankees
- Thread starter Corsi
- Start date
Given the amount his salary is actually subsidized by the state (tax payer funded stadiums for example) I think a professional baseball player has little to complain about.
Montana Fan said:
It's likely that his total Federal tax rate will be just under 42% for all of the income that is exposed to taxation.
- Federal Income taxes: 39.6% (It will probably round down to 39.5% or 39.4% given the progressive marginal rates for the first $450,000 or so)
- Given the income cap of $117,000 FICA will have essentially zero impact on his earnings (the max FICA is $7,254, or .03%)
- Medicare hits everything, so that's another 2.35%
Based on what we talked about before, his state taxes will be a blended rate. Probably end up around 5%
He may or may not pay city taxes.
So before any adjustments, he'll be just under or just over 50%. But if he's smart, he'll most certainly have adjustments that will bring the effective rate down below 40%.
Whether it's a lot is a matter of perspective. I'm not shedding tears for him in any case.
Edit: Missed that ghoff got there first...
jon abbey said:
Just replying to this post, but I have to admit it infuriates me everytime someone thinks they have a smaller tax burden because a state has no income tax. A state that has no income tax will make it up with taxes elsewhere - for example property taxes or other ad valorem taxes.
Yes tax burdens can change from state to state but basically they are about the same - the lowest being Alaska at 7.0% of state income and the highest being NY/NJ/CT at just over 12% of state income.
Maybe people are saying this, but I don't think that's the reason you don't see most sox fans panicking about this. Tanaka certainly makes the yankees better, but there were, i think, two "nightmare" scenarios for this off season:geoduck no quahog said:
(1) The yankees get under the luxury cap and reset the tax, allowing them to go nuts for the next 5-10 seasons and outspend everyone by as much as they want.
(2) They decide they don't care about the luxury tax at all, now or ever, and do the same thing, but starting this coming season.
In (1), we get a year of reprieve before they load up. In (2), they end up not only with tanaka, ellbury, mccann, beltran, but also with cano (who's a big one), granderson, balfour, etc, etc. Either way, the bulk of the next 5+ years end up with the yankees looking like run away favorites.
Instead, they seem to have picked a middle road, where they care enough about the cap to not go nuts on cano, but not enough to reset it. They'll undoubtedly be good, and better than last season, but not out of reach. The lack of a coherent plan seems to have resulted in avoiding either of these nightmare scenarios.
Yes. The Yankees are always going to be able to spend their way to goodness and occasional greatness. When they are very smart too, as they have been at points during this 20 year run, they are scarier. The Red Sox can counter by being smarter or having more flexibility (e.g. not getting locked into many players who are past their prime) or more depth (or having Schilling and Martinez).finnVT said:
The Yankees may be very very good. And we may get two years in and Beltran or McCann or Rodriguez or Teixeira or Tanaka or Sabathia may suddenly not be worth the money but still playing a lot while the Red Sox have more maneuverability. These moves all make the Yankees better this year but they all have risk and none of them seem like the work of a genius with a long-term plan.
Average Reds said:
I think this is a pretty solid summary. The only thing I'd tweak is that I'd bet that his blended state rate will be even lower. When you factor in time spent in states like TX, FL, PA, MA, etc. with lower or no state income tax, then factor in deductions/exclusions, and then factor in the federal deduction for state taxes, he'll probably be below 5%. They key will be whether he's a NY resident or not, and if so whether he lives in NYC. He can always use Jeter's strategy of claiming he's a FL resident, although Jeter lost his case.
And the key issue of that posting was highlighting an organization who's sole reason for being is to propagandize about taxes. This is a baseball thread, not a Norquist thread. The poster should have taken it to V&N where everyone would have suitably ripped him a new asshole.
Back to baseball:
I kind of pity NYY fans, who won't recognize the new team they've bought (that's been sold to them) in 2013. Yes, winning is good and yes, the Red Sox brought in 9 FA's last year, but when you think about St. Louis or Kansas City or (soon to be) Cubs or Astros teams, when they make it to the Series their fans will have pride in growing up alongside their home-grown talent after suffered through lean years.
That's got to be more satisfying than being a mercenary, although I still think Rays fans are assholes.
Back to baseball:
I kind of pity NYY fans, who won't recognize the new team they've bought (that's been sold to them) in 2013. Yes, winning is good and yes, the Red Sox brought in 9 FA's last year, but when you think about St. Louis or Kansas City or (soon to be) Cubs or Astros teams, when they make it to the Series their fans will have pride in growing up alongside their home-grown talent after suffered through lean years.
That's got to be more satisfying than being a mercenary, although I still think Rays fans are assholes.
finnVT said:
The idea that teams like the Yankees don't have a budget or plan seems silly to me. At the end of the day they will have a payroll which will be around 220 million which is about where they have been the past 5 years, a bit lower than last years record high. If anything they have been reducing salary by not keeping pace with salary inflation. Resetting the tax hardly would have allowed unrestrained spending for 5-10 years since it escalates quite quickly, going from 17.5-30-40-50.
Teams have short, medium and long term plans, all of them operating at the same time, and they undergo changes to account for changing circumstances. Right now they are restructuring their player development system and going big after international free agents and will pay the penalty for going over. That's the long term plan, to fix the farm system. Tanaka, McCann and Ellsbury are short and medium term plans as they should be good for 4-5 years. The rest is filler for the short term to compete and keep the revenue streams flowing.
They could have disregarded the short term, stayed under 189 and fielded an awful team for 3 years hoping they could get some decent picks, but the revenues losses would have been enormous and draft picks and prospects are not a sure thing. Over 60% of BA's top 100 prospects are busts
Maybe if there was a Santa Clause who would have taken CC, Tex and Arods contracts from them they could have resigned Cano and some other free medium cost agents and be considered geniuses like the Red Sox FO is now. But Santa does not go to NY, maybe too many tall buildings and taxes.
Yeah, I think raising most of your own players is more satisfying, but if the farm isn't producing, what choice is there? Did you really take that much less joy from all the success last season after three lean years because Boston brought in so many FAs? Will you take more satisfaction this season if Boston relies more on their own young players but the season isn't successful?geoduck no quahog said:
A baseball season is so long, I think by the end of it, the players brought in are 'your' players. For Boston, when I think of guys like Napoli, I think of them as Red Sox. The term mercenary really doesn't come to mind. I don't think you really need to pity us. I certainly don't pity you.
I agree with EE's sentiment when it comes to players acquired through free agency. By the end of Spring Training we've read articles about the new guys and heard some cool soundbites or interviews. Then the season comes along and they start contributing to wins and we love them.
Developing your own talent and watching them win certainly is the most enjoyable, but wins are wins at the end of the day and we all root for the laundry.
Developing your own talent and watching them win certainly is the most enjoyable, but wins are wins at the end of the day and we all root for the laundry.
Come on, Sampo. It certainly looks like there wasn't any consistent plan for running the yankees these last couple years.
Was there a plan in 2013? Yeah. Contend while setting the stage to get under $189 million payroll as viewed by MLB.
Is there a plan in 2014? Yeah. Only now there's no plan to get under $189 million which means any instance of foregoing expenditure in 2012 or 2013 to get there was completely wasted.
So there were plans in both 2013 and 2014 but different, clashing plans.
Was there a plan in 2013? Yeah. Contend while setting the stage to get under $189 million payroll as viewed by MLB.
Is there a plan in 2014? Yeah. Only now there's no plan to get under $189 million which means any instance of foregoing expenditure in 2012 or 2013 to get there was completely wasted.
So there were plans in both 2013 and 2014 but different, clashing plans.
Which is why I mentioned plans change to account for changing circumstances. I believe the 2012-2013 plan included making the playoffs in 2012-2013 which would have allowed them to take a year off in 2014 so to speak, and reset the tax,. However, failing as badly as they did in 2013, they could not chance losing in 2014 as revenue losses would have dwarfed the 58 million lost in 2013, so the plan changed.Rough Carrigan said:
If they can't chance missing the playoffs in 2014, why didn't the sign Cano? As it stands now their best middle infield option is a 40 year old shortstop with no wheels who couldn't even field when he had wheels.Sampo Gida said:
I wonder how much the uncertainty over the luxury tax had to do with that - Cano for 10 years will likely be bad at the end, but in Seattle that's the limit of how bad it would be... But if the next CBA increases the luxury tax penalty from 50 to 75 or 100%, a team like the Yankees could be stuck paying basically 45-50 mil/yr for decline years, which could be horrifically bad.
With Tanaka, at least you're getting his relative prime, and the commitment isn't nearly as long... Flexibility may have a lot of value if they aren't confident what will happen a few years down the road
With Tanaka, at least you're getting his relative prime, and the commitment isn't nearly as long... Flexibility may have a lot of value if they aren't confident what will happen a few years down the road
That's not how the tax works. They don't pay a percentage of their total payroll. They pay tax on how much they exceed the threshold . If the threshold is 189 and they end up at 199, and their rate is at 40% then they are taxed 4 million. I'm using made up numbers for simplicity here but you get the idea.
The problem with the free agent approach, I think, is to some extent a surprising one: the Yankees payroll actually isn't high enough to win with this approach.
Although WAR has its fair share of flaws, it's not bad as a quick and dirty estimate of what it takes to be a contending team. Let's guess that we're trying to build a 50 WAR team via free agency. I'm going to be a bit sloppy with the math here because of limited time and get a rough estimate, but I'd be interested to see somebody do this calculation more carefully and how it comes out.
How much does it cost to build a 50-WAR team via free agency? This year, it seems to be around $6M per WAR. That might be slowly going up over time, but if so, payrolls probably grow as well, so it's a reasonable estimate. Let's guess that we sign 5 players to 5-year deals each offseason (for longer deals, the math only gets worse).
The other recent trend is that more players are signing extensions past their arbitration years, so the best free agents available are generally older and less skilled than in the past. This won't stop us from assembling a 50 WAR team if we sign the best players available, but it does mean we're going to be later in the aging curve. If we guess that we're signing players around age 31, and they follow a curve something like http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2010/06/war_aging_curve.php, then they'll linearly lose about 60% of their value over a 5-year contract. A player averaging 2 WAR over his deal (the average player on our roster) will be a 2.9 WAR player when signed, and therefore we'll be paying him something like $87M/5. And remember, that's our average player, not a luxury item.
So, the problem is that in order to assemble this team entirely via free agency, the necessary payroll is something in the ballpark of $430M. A number that might go up if a team really does this because of the market effects of having to sign this many top free agents each offseason.
I've only done this calculation roughly, and I'd love to see somebody do it more carefully. But the key takeaway is that building a team that can win a title with free agents on the wrong side of 30 seems require a payroll pretty close to double what even the Yankees have been willing to spend.
Although WAR has its fair share of flaws, it's not bad as a quick and dirty estimate of what it takes to be a contending team. Let's guess that we're trying to build a 50 WAR team via free agency. I'm going to be a bit sloppy with the math here because of limited time and get a rough estimate, but I'd be interested to see somebody do this calculation more carefully and how it comes out.
How much does it cost to build a 50-WAR team via free agency? This year, it seems to be around $6M per WAR. That might be slowly going up over time, but if so, payrolls probably grow as well, so it's a reasonable estimate. Let's guess that we sign 5 players to 5-year deals each offseason (for longer deals, the math only gets worse).
The other recent trend is that more players are signing extensions past their arbitration years, so the best free agents available are generally older and less skilled than in the past. This won't stop us from assembling a 50 WAR team if we sign the best players available, but it does mean we're going to be later in the aging curve. If we guess that we're signing players around age 31, and they follow a curve something like http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2010/06/war_aging_curve.php, then they'll linearly lose about 60% of their value over a 5-year contract. A player averaging 2 WAR over his deal (the average player on our roster) will be a 2.9 WAR player when signed, and therefore we'll be paying him something like $87M/5. And remember, that's our average player, not a luxury item.
So, the problem is that in order to assemble this team entirely via free agency, the necessary payroll is something in the ballpark of $430M. A number that might go up if a team really does this because of the market effects of having to sign this many top free agents each offseason.
I've only done this calculation roughly, and I'd love to see somebody do it more carefully. But the key takeaway is that building a team that can win a title with free agents on the wrong side of 30 seems require a payroll pretty close to double what even the Yankees have been willing to spend.
I think there are several flaws to this. First, you can't just add up individual WARs and assume that a team will be a 50 WAR team. Second, you're assuming that all 25 guys are FAs. They do have some pre-arb and pre-FA players who obviously won't cost $6m per win. I'm sure other people can better expand on these issues or point out other ones.
I think the real problem is much simpler. They spend money stupidly. There's no reason they shouldn't be much better when they spend a quarter billion on payroll. For example, is there any way Beltran is worth 3 wins this year, to continue your analysis based on WAR? Last year he was worth 2 wins per Fangraphs. Cano was worth three times that but they wouldn't pay up for him. What will Beltran be worth in 2015 and 2016?
I think the real problem is much simpler. They spend money stupidly. There's no reason they shouldn't be much better when they spend a quarter billion on payroll. For example, is there any way Beltran is worth 3 wins this year, to continue your analysis based on WAR? Last year he was worth 2 wins per Fangraphs. Cano was worth three times that but they wouldn't pay up for him. What will Beltran be worth in 2015 and 2016?
CSteinhardt said:
While this may be true, there's other ways to spend. One of the classics is to take an awful contract off someone's hands - as long as they throw in a young prospect or two. Point being is that even a team with no good draft system (and every system gets lucky with at least one prospect, anyway) can still spend their way into contention.
Also, it's not like you need a 50 WAR team in the Wild Card Era. Back when there was no wild card, "all" you had to do was to be better than the #2 in your division in order to get into the post season - and if you could outspend the #2 on FAs, so much the better. That was basically the Sox/Yankees dynamic for years.
RWAR assumes that a team made up of replacement level players, i.e. a team with zero WAR, would win only 52 games. So the equation is WIN= 52+WAR. If you assume 90 wins is required to make the playoffs and you are currently fielding a replacement level team (like the Astros) then you would need to find 40 WAR on the FA market. However, before the off season, the Yankees were not a replacement level team so they don't need to find 40 WAR. Instead they only need to find 10-15 WAR on the FA market.Rovin Romine said:
It is an interesting way to put the "100 million dollar player development machine" in context though (and I know this isn't how that comment was necessarily intended, and that the numbers are certainly different now)...
at 40 rWAR needed per season, you're looking at 240-320m of player value needed (depending on what WAR/$ value you prefer). If you want to stay under the luxury cap, you system needs to be generating 50-130m worth of extra "value" (beyond what you're paying, be it in arb or pre-arb deals, or early extensions that save AAV). obviously, having FAs that consistently outperform can cut into this (and vice versa), but it gives a ballpark idea on what a farm system needs to be producing (i.e., arb & pre-arb players producing about 8-15 WAR more than you're paying them for).
at 40 rWAR needed per season, you're looking at 240-320m of player value needed (depending on what WAR/$ value you prefer). If you want to stay under the luxury cap, you system needs to be generating 50-130m worth of extra "value" (beyond what you're paying, be it in arb or pre-arb deals, or early extensions that save AAV). obviously, having FAs that consistently outperform can cut into this (and vice versa), but it gives a ballpark idea on what a farm system needs to be producing (i.e., arb & pre-arb players producing about 8-15 WAR more than you're paying them for).
There has been several references to Cano, and that the Yanks should have matched the ten years offered by Seattle, if they were serious about winning.
Really? After the ARod fiasco, the FO announced that they weren't interested to handing out ten year deals to thirty something players, regardless of how good they currently are. After seeing how they have ARod for another 3 seasons, after 2014, I can't blame them and believe they made the right choice in not going up to 10/$235m.
(hijack over)
Really? After the ARod fiasco, the FO announced that they weren't interested to handing out ten year deals to thirty something players, regardless of how good they currently are. After seeing how they have ARod for another 3 seasons, after 2014, I can't blame them and believe they made the right choice in not going up to 10/$235m.
(hijack over)
If you look at just ARod the player and ignore all of the other nonsense he's caused, how has he hindered NY's chances of winning? Sure, he's overpaid. But has his contract stopped them from acquiring whatever they needed? If he ends up being a full-time DH or platoon player, will that cause them not to win? The answer is no. And that's why some of us don't understand the decision to let Cano walk. For a team with NY's resources, they could absorb the back end of the deal even if they aren't getting full value for it and it won't make a difference. Look at what NY has spent this offseason and they still have three years to go on ARod's deal. There is no evidence that having a declining, highly-paid player on the roster will limit them.
barbed wire Bob said:
I've seen it as calibrated to more like 40, which would make sense given that there are regularly a number of teams above 50, but there aren't regularly a number of teams above 52 wins. http://www.halosheaven.com/2013/2/26/4019472/war-replacement-team-wins seems to get around 43.
Rovin Romine said:
Whether you need 50 WAR depends upon the calibration, and in the current system, not all playoff berths are equal. But, 50 WAR seems to get you 90-93 wins, depending upon which calibration you use, and that's probably the right benchmark to within a couple of wins either way, right? The numbers don't change much if you say you want 46 WAR.
I think there are basically two questions that come up here, both of which are sensible questions:
1) As a thought experiment, imagine that we're trying to build a sustainable 25-man playoff roster using cash alone, buying all of our players through free agency. Can you do this on a $230M payroll? If not, what payroll do you need in order to make this work?
[Obviously, you can pay less per win with arbitration, and even less for players pre-arb -- that's the point. And it's worth asking exactly how much of a discount you get. But it's worth asking the original question as a baseline, because it dictates strategy. For example, it might tell you that if you've got a $100M payroll, to contend you need 35 WAR out of players on rookie contracts if you're rounding out the rest with free agents, etc.]
2) If you're going to spend money to acquire WAR, are you generally better off buying FAs or buying somebody else's bad contracts that come with talented prospects stapled to them? In other words, is there an improved version of this strategy that still allows you to give up your top draft picks every year and sign who you want, yet gets you some young talent?
I realize that my quick and dirty estimate was just that, and I'm certain somebody in here has numbers that will let you answer these questions more rigorously. I'd be interested to see how that comes out, and I'd wager that my initial estimate of $430M wasn't off by more than about 30%.
Of course the answer is yes. You seem to think they have an unlimited payroll. They don't. They're just willing to have a bigger payroll than just about everyone else. The more dead money they have on the payroll, the less money they have to fill holes in the lineup or rotation. The key to success for any club is payroll efficiency -- the more value they get out of players on the field relative to what they pay them, the better their team will be. That is true for the Yankees, the Sox, and everyone else.
edit: response to ghoff, if it isn't obvious.
edit: response to ghoff, if it isn't obvious.
CSteinhardt said:
Fangraphs and Baseball Reference unified their team replacement level wins last year at .294, or 47.7 wins.
Rasputin said:
Even the Yankees have a budget. They obviously felt they could replace Canos production with Ellsbury and Beltran and leave room for a top pitcher like Tanaka. However, while winning is obviously a real goal here, just as important maybe is giving fans the illusion the team will be competitive so they buy tickets in advance.
One can disagree they have done enough to be competitive but many Yankee fans think this is now a good team, holes and all. Entering the offseason it was mainly gloom and doom for 2014 in Yankeeland, and attendance would have fell through the roof in 2014 without spending a ton of money.
I think they were foolish to let Cano go since in the short term 4 million per WAR would have significant value. However, I think teams know their players best and Cano on a 10 yr deal may be the type of player who slacks off quite a bit on his offseason conditioning, especially after his workout partner Cervelli was busted for steroids. Who knows how a financially secure Cano on his last contract will perform better than the Yankees? See how he does next year.
Also. the Yankees may not be done yet. I still think Drew makes a great deal of sense for the Yankees as backup for the day (which is imminent) when Jeter and the Yankees recognize he can no longer play SS. Until that day comes, Drew could play 3B. Drew would be willing to do so on a 3 yr deal knowing that by 2015 at the latest he will be back at SS. This is great insurance for 2014 if Jeter gets injured or Tanaka threatens to commit seppuku when another ball goes past a diving Jetah. Ryan has a great glove but hits like a pitcher, and you can't have that kind of offensive hole in the AL East
Next Monday YES is going to show one of Tanaka's NPL starts from last June:
http://yankees.lhblogs.com/2014/02/04/yes-network-broadcast-one-tanakas-japanese-starts/
http://yankees.lhblogs.com/2014/02/04/yes-network-broadcast-one-tanakas-japanese-starts/
This is where Old Hoss Radbourn gets quoted wondering why fans would be so interested in a starting pitching going 5 innings.rembrat said:
Kuroda's going to be his mentor. CC makes the most money so in the Yankees' world, that makes him the ace. I like the idea of a No. 3 starter with one of the best pitches in baseball in his arsenal. The only thing that puts Tanaka ahead of Nova at this point is his superior command. Nova throws harder and has a killer curveball.jon abbey said:
The key to this starting rotation really is CC and Kuroda. Does CC bounce back? Can the Yankees avoid burning Kuroda out? It's not brain surgery to baby Kuroda and try to limit his innings in the first half of the season. No need to send him out for the 7th inning like they did 18 times last season before Aug. 12 when he hit the wall and crashed.
terrynever said:
Their ability to limit Kuroda's innings will depend on the pen. Last year they had a great pen, this year we have no idea what they will get out of the pen. I am not all that optimistic about the pen. They spent 500 million to build a sports car but skimped on the wheels (pen and IF)
They will also need to limit Tanakas innings in his first year of pitching every 5 days against much better hitters, which will increase the stress of those innings. The weak defense in the IF also means more of his GB's will go for hits, and with an expected increase in walks, further increasing his pitch count. Whether they do this by skipping the occasional start or with quicker hooks I don't know.
If Pineda can grab the 5th spot, there may be times when the Yankees would be better off going with a 6 man rotation. With the exception of CC I don't think the Yankees want anyone else throwing 200+ innings (Kuroda-age, Piendea-injury, Tanaka-transition, etc), and if CC pitches like last year they won't want him throwing 200+ innings .
terrynever said:
He has yet to throw a pitch yet in MLB but oh yeah, he has one of the best pitches in baseball - good luck with that.
jon abbey said:
This is nonsense. You can have more than one "#1 starter" on a team. It's not a term relative to the rest of the rotation. I appreciate you trying to give it a positive spin but everyone knows what the term "#3 starter" means in general.
You should know by now I really don't do the spin thing. Since you bring it up again, here are Cashman's followup comments the next day:
"Speaking to The Post on Friday, general manager Brian Cashman said there are only a “handful” of pitchers in baseball who can be considered aces. Cashman was then asked if Sabathia still falls into that “ace” category.
“CC is the leader of our staff, but obviously after last year I don’t know if you can consider him in that [Clayton] Kershaw category,” Cashman said. “But he is the leader of our staff.”
Sabathia, who went 14-13 with a 4.78 ERA last year, spent the offseason building muscle — and has been visibly leaner in recent public appearances. But the lefty may have to prove he’s still the best pitcher in his rotation, never mind regaining a place among the game’s elite.
With Masahiro Tanaka last month signed to a seven-year contract worth $155 million, it’s clear there could be a changing of the guard atop the Yankees’ rotation.
Cashman indicated that comments he made earlier in the day, when he told ESPN-Radio Tanaka should be viewed as a No. 3 starter, were misconstrued.
“The question was whether I thought [Tanaka] would be at the front of the rotation right out of spring training,” Cashman said. “I said that I didn’t expect that. You’re talking about the adjustment, transition, growing pains. We look for him to be a solid No. 3, and after that if it’s better than that, great.”"
http://nypost.com/2014/02/07/yanks-gm-not-sure-id-call-sabathia-elite/
"Speaking to The Post on Friday, general manager Brian Cashman said there are only a “handful” of pitchers in baseball who can be considered aces. Cashman was then asked if Sabathia still falls into that “ace” category.
“CC is the leader of our staff, but obviously after last year I don’t know if you can consider him in that [Clayton] Kershaw category,” Cashman said. “But he is the leader of our staff.”
Sabathia, who went 14-13 with a 4.78 ERA last year, spent the offseason building muscle — and has been visibly leaner in recent public appearances. But the lefty may have to prove he’s still the best pitcher in his rotation, never mind regaining a place among the game’s elite.
With Masahiro Tanaka last month signed to a seven-year contract worth $155 million, it’s clear there could be a changing of the guard atop the Yankees’ rotation.
Cashman indicated that comments he made earlier in the day, when he told ESPN-Radio Tanaka should be viewed as a No. 3 starter, were misconstrued.
“The question was whether I thought [Tanaka] would be at the front of the rotation right out of spring training,” Cashman said. “I said that I didn’t expect that. You’re talking about the adjustment, transition, growing pains. We look for him to be a solid No. 3, and after that if it’s better than that, great.”"
http://nypost.com/2014/02/07/yanks-gm-not-sure-id-call-sabathia-elite/
So this is how he rolls...$195K on a flight from Japan for 6 and a poodle.
http://nypost.com/2014/02/10/masahiro-tanaka-drops-195k-on-5-person-1-dog-flight-to-new-york/
http://nypost.com/2014/02/10/masahiro-tanaka-drops-195k-on-5-person-1-dog-flight-to-new-york/
I don't see anything controversial or unreasonable with what Cashman said. Hopeful for a #3 out the gate, and potentially better over time as he adjusts.
I don't think he will ever be a true ace any way. Probably a 2 and possibly a 3...which is embarrassing considering the commitment they just made to him. But that's what happens when NY can't develop their own talent.
I
I
StuckOnYouk said:
How can anybody project Tanaka? There is such a wide spectrum of possible outcomes, with an innumerable amount of variables that could add or subtract from his success in NY.
A bad/mediocre translator can affect public perception of a non-English speaking player so much. Just one example: Michael Kay asked a series of insipid questions, including "are you nervous about any of this?". The translator gave Tanaka's answer as "Yes, I am very nervous" but my wife (who is a Japanese/English translator professionally) said that he actually said he was very excited.
People keep citing Haren and Kuroda as comparisons, and I think those are good ones, but one person that comes to mind a bit for me is El Duque (my favorite Yankee pitcher ever). It's hard to compare since El Duque didn't get to the US until he was much more experienced at 32, but it seems like Tanaka has some of the same chameleon-like ability to change his approach depending on the situation and to come up bigger in big games/situations.
jon abbey said:
What are you basing this on? I don't mean this in a pejorative way, I'm honestly curious. Admittedly I haven't followed the Tanaka thing that closely since I never expected the Red Sox to sign him, so if there's something obvious I missed in the coverage, my apologies.
Well, it's not based on too much admittedly, but for one thing, people talk about how his velocity sits at 92 or so normally, but he can dial it up to 97 or 98 when he needs, often late in games. Also he evidently changed his approach in the last few seasons to pitch to contact more often as opposed to going after strikeouts. And I've read anecdotes about him going after specific hitters for one reason or another (I am blanking on the specifics, sorry) and just dominating them.
So, yeah, not much, sorry. I also don't know nearly as much about him as I probably should.
So, yeah, not much, sorry. I also don't know nearly as much about him as I probably should.
jon abbey said:
I haven't heard about Tanaka touching 97-98 mph. His strikeouts are down, but I think the jury's still out on whether that's because he's pitching to contact more to try to keep his pitch counts reasonable or whether it's a red flag. I've heard opinions all over the place, we should get a much better idea of the kind of pitcher that he is once he starts throwing standard MLB baseballs every fifth day against major league caliber hitters.
"Tanaka came back with a wicked 89 mph splitter that Fukuura swung over the top of before reaching back for this 97 mph fastball on his 108th pitch of the game to escape unscathed."
http://www.mlbexpertpicks.com/#!Scouts-analyze-Masahiro-Tanakas-fastball/c1oqm/191E5A66-FF0F-451C-8E78-ED52D2AB2A84