Much has been written, spoken and tweeted about the struggles of Masahiro Tanaka in 2017. After a sterling spring training, the Yankees ace has been terrible, with a 6.07 ERA and 5.46 FIP. He’s walking more batters than ever before and giving up what’s probably an unsustainably high HR/FB%.
It seems everyone has an explanation for Tanaka’s poor performance. Some say he’s injured, which I don’t think is true because it would be neglectful of the Yankees to not ensure a struggling pitcher is healthy. Some think he’s tipping pitches, even though it’s unlikely that nobody on the Yankees would notice a tip if it happened over the course of multiple starts.