:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/25705513/162952476.0.jpg)
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all Fake Teams readers. I hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday season.
It was announced earlier this evening, last night, whatever.....that Mashiro Tanaka will be posted by his team, the Rakuten Golden Eagles. Here is a tweet from Dodgers beat writer Dylan Hernandez:
Rakuten's decision to post Masahiro Tanaka was announced by team president Yozo Tachibana.
— Dylan Hernandez (@dylanohernandez) December 25, 2013
I wrote my thoughts on Tanaka back in early November, where I asked whether he was a top of the rotation starter or not. Here is an excerpt:
Tanaka compares favorably to Darvish here, as his ERA was slightly above 2.00 for his career, while Darvish's career ERA was 1.99. Tanaka won more games in his seven seasons in Japan, but also made more starts. Tanaka had better control than Darvish, contributing to his higher career K/BB ratio.
Getting back to his low walk rate, only four starters in baseball had a lower BB/9 than Tanaka in 2013: Cliff Lee, of course, David Price, Adam Wainwright and Bartolo Colon. Only three starters had a higher K/BB than Tanaka - Lee, Wainwright and Mets ace Matt Harvey. Sure, the two leagues are different. I get that. But the comparison does tell me that he has talent, and could be a very good starter in 2014.
In that piece, I wrote that I would rank him in my top 30 starting pitchers. I will post my updated starting pitcher rankings in the next day or so, but will more than likely stick with that ranking.
What teams will be interested in Tanaka? I imagine every team will have some level of interest, but some of the teams mentioned includes the Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox, Diamondbacks, among others. HIs ranking in my top 100 starting pitcher rankings will differ based on where he signs.
Fantasy owners should target him in all drafts this season, he is that good. I think he could have as big of an impact as Yu Darvish has had.
There has already been talk that he could easily eclipse the six year, $60 million contract Yu Darvish received from the Texas Rangers a few seasons ago. The Rangers paid a posting fee of $51 million, so in total, they paid $111 million for Darvish for six years. The team that wins the bidding for Tanaka will pay $20 million to the Rakuten Golden Eagles in addition to the contract they give to Tanaka.
Who do you think/want to win the biddling for Tanaka's services? Let's hear your thoughts in the poll and the comments sections below.
