The Yankees have made Masahiro Tanaka their top offseason pitching priority, and though not everyone is sold he can be an ace or that he will hold up after being ridden hard in seven seasons with Rakuten, one former Yankee who has played with Tanaka through most of his career believes he would do just fine in the majors.
“I watch him, his mentality, he’s a bulldog,” Darrell Rasner told WFAN.
Rasner spent parts of three seasons with the Yankees, the last in 2008. Since then, he has been with Rakuten, where he has most recently been pitching out of the bullpen.
“He doesn’t need to prove anything else [in Japan],” Rasner said. “He almost at times goes easy and just plays with [hitters]. He’ll go out there and get guys out at 70 percent. I just think he’s really special, super fun watching him.”
With the rest of their plans on hold until they get a better idea of where they stand in the Tanaka sweepstakes, as well as how much they are going to owe Alex Rodriguez following arbitrator Fredric Horowitz’s ruling on the appeal of A-Rod’s 211-game suspension, their primary focus is on landing the 25-year-old right-hander, who went 24-0 with a 1.27 ERA in 2013.
Rasner said Tanaka continues to improve.
“This year I saw him learn how to mess with guys’ timing,” Rasner said. “He would do a quick pitch, change speeds. He really has a good feel right now of what he’s doing.”
Though Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and Tanaka’s agent, Casey Close, have kept in touch since Tanaka became a free agent last month, no meetings have been set up. Nevertheless, the process will have to move fairly quickly once it gets underway, because there is a Jan. 24 deadline to sign the Japanese star and pay his former Rakuten team the $20 million posting fee.
Rasner, who went 5-10 with the Yankees in 2008, said he is confident Tanaka is worth the investment.
“You see this with some pitchers, they have this extra gear,” Rasner said. “I don’t have that extra gear, and it’s really fun watching these pitchers that when they get in trouble they can go up that extra bit and get outs that way with just pure stuff.”
Still, he joined the chorus of those cautioning about the amount of pitches Tanaka has thrown.
“I would always tell him to try to knock his workload down, but the guys in Japan, they don’t think that way,” Rasner said. “I think that his size [6-foot-2] and body are different than other Japanese players, so he’s able to handle the load a little better. But certainly there’s always some worry of them throwing too much. That’s the only thing they know, especially Tanaka — he wants that ball, and he wants to keep the ball, it’s really hard to get the ball from him.”
Rasner said he doesn’t expect Tanaka to be overwhelmed by the spotlight, if he ends up in The Bronx.
“New York is a tough market, but I think by him pitching in Japan he has had the entire country watching him, so I really don’t think it’s going to be a huge deal,” Rasner said.