January 29th, 2021: Tanaka, O’Day, Roster Check-in, Six-Man Rotation, Mailbag

Spring Training is a little more than two weeks away and players are already filing into Tampa. Erik Boland says Mike Ford, Yoendrys Gomez, Aaron Judge, Mike King, Nick Nelson, Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Gio Urshela, and Luke Voit were among those spotted at the complex earlier this week. Severino (Tommy John) and Urshela (bone spurs) are in rehab mode following their elbow surgeries. Let’s get to today’s thoughts.

1. Tanaka returns to Japan. It’s official: Masahiro Tanaka is returning to the Rakuten Golden Eagles, his former team in Japan. Rakuten confirmed Tanaka’s return yesterday and there will be a press conference in the coming days. Tanaka released a statement:

To my beloved fans,

I hope everybody is keeping safe during these challenging times. I wanted to reach out to you because I have made a decision on where I will be playing this coming season. I have decided to return to Japan and play for the Rakuten Eagles for the 2021 season. I wanted to make sure and touch base with you, and thank you for all the love and support you have given me for the past 7 seasons. I feel extremely fortunate for having the opportunity to take the field as a member of the New York Yankees, and play in front of all you passionate fans. It has been an honor and a privilege!

Thank you so much!!

I am extremely sad. I understand the baseball reasons behind letting Tanaka walk, but I’m still sad. He's smart, savvy, adaptable, reliable, unflappable, accountable, sneaky funny, and pretty much everything a team could want in a big money free agent. Tanaka was a top 25 pitcher (by WAR) in his seven years as a Yankee and he was nails in the postseason more often than not too. I badly wish the Yankees could have gotten him a World Series ring (he should have won a Gold Glove too dammit), and this ending is wholly unsatisfying.

Tanaka’s signature moment is Game 3 of the 2017 ALDS. He held a 102-win Cleveland team to three hits and one walk in seven scoreless innings (video, RAB recap) with the Yankees down 0-2 in the best-of-five series, spurring on the ALDS comeback. A literal season-saver. Tanaka then allowed two runs in 13 innings against the cheatin’ Astros in the ALCS. Even with last year’s clunkers, Tanaka had a 3.33 ERA in 10 postseason starts as a Yankee, and five times in those 10 starts he allowed one run or less.

The Kyodo News says it’s a two-year contract worth $8.6M per year and I believe that makes Tanaka the highest paid player in Japan (Patrick Newman passed along word that Tomoyuki Sugano’s new deal is worth $8M a year). As much as I enjoy dunking on dumb baseball teams -- Andy Martino says at least one MLB team wanted Tanaka as a closer, which is capital-D Dumb -- and as terrible as the optics of the second best free agent starter going overseas are for the sport, I don’t think this is the result of teams being cheap. Not entirely, anyway. I don’t think two years and $9M a year was keeping Tanaka in MLB.

My sense is Tanaka was uninterested in bouncing from team to team at this point in his career. He wants to be where he’s comfortable, so the Yankees or Rakuten made the most sense. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have signed elsewhere had the offer been good enough (the Blue Jays made a lot of sense), just that it wasn’t necessarily a “I’m going wherever the best offer takes me” situation. Tanaka makes his permanent home in Japan (he trains at Rakuten’s facility in the offseason) and his extended family is there. He returned to Japan during the shutdown and it’s just home. It’s home. That’s where he prefers to be if not playing for the Yankees.

The timing suggests Tanaka exhausted the possibility of returning to the Yankees too. He didn’t sign with Rakuten until this week, after the Yankees completed their major offseason business. Also, Rakuten GM Kaz Ishii (yes, that Kaz Ishii) told the Kyodo News that Tanaka will not report when the team begins Spring Training on Feb. 1st. He’ll report at some point prior to their first exhibition game on Feb. 23rd, indicating Tanaka is still training on an MLB schedule. He was preparing for Spring Training to begin in mid February, not early February.

All that said, it positively sucks the Yankees could not work out a deal with Tanaka, and he is by far the most significant casualty of the luxury tax plan. Signing Tanaka to a multi-year deal would’ve made me a bit nervous, but a one-year deal? Even at something in the $15M to $20M range he was reportedly seeking? Hard to see how the Yankees would regret that any way other than financially. There’s always room for more pitching and the Yankees could use more reliable innings, and Tanaka can provide them. Alas.

I suppose Tanaka could return to the Yankees (or MLB in general) at some point -- his statement said he’s joining Rakuten “for the 2021 season” with no mention of 2022 even though it’s a two-year contract -- but it seems unlikely. His new contract takes him through his age 34 season. If he prioritized comfort now, what are the odds an MLB team offers enough to buy him away from Rakuten when he’s two years older? No big name Japanese player has come to MLB, had success, gone home to play in Japan, had success, then come back to MLB. Tanaka could be the first! I would bet against it though. More likely than not, this is goodbye forever, at least until Masahiro comes back for Old Timers’ Day.

"Disappointing news with Masa signing that he won’t be back with the Yankees, but just wanted to mention what a great teammate he’s been and what an impact he’s had on the Yankees and the city, and I obviously wish him well and I’ll be following him,” DJ LeMahieu told Lindsey Adler yesterday. Same, DJ. Same.

2. Yankees sign O’Day. Didn’t take the Yankees long to replace Adam Ottavino. According to Lindsey Adler, they’ve agreed to a deal with veteran sidewinder Darren O’Day. The contract terms are a tad complicated. From Joel Sherman:

• 2021: $1.75M salary
• 2022: $1.4M player option with $700,000 buyout
• 2022: $3.15M club option if O’Day declines player option (no buyout)

The Braves declined their $3.25M club option for O’Day after last season and instead paid him a $250,000 buyout. Because the player option represents a pay cut, chances are O’Day will only pick it up if he gets hurt or has a poor year, in which case the Yankees will probably eat the money (and luxury tax charge) and release him. The player option is a $700,000 insurance policy for O’Day.

For luxury tax purposes, Article XXIII(E)(5)(a)(ii) of the Collective Bargaining Agreement says a player option year is considered a guaranteed year unless “the payment the Player is to receive if he declines to exercise his option or nullifies the championship season is more than 50% of the Base Salary payable for that championship season.”

Wouldn’t you know it, O’Day’s buyout is exactly 50% (i.e. not “more than 50%”) of the player option salary, so it is considered a guaranteed year for luxury tax purposes. The easiest way to lower a luxury tax hit is increasing the denominator (years), not decreasing the numerator (dollars). This all means O’Day will count as $1.575M against the luxury tax in 2021 ($1.75M plus $1.4M divided by two years). We’ll worry about his impact on the 2022 luxury tax payroll when the time comes.

For all intents and purposes, the Yankees replaced Ottavino with an older and cheaper version of Ottavino. O’Day, 38, is a similar high strikeout righty specialist, though he doesn’t throw as hard (hasn’t hit even 89 mph since August 2018) and has a sweepier slider. He’s gotten away from ground balls and really leaned into strikeouts the last few years:

O’Day threw only 25.1 innings from 2018-19 because of a torn hamstring and a flexor strain, but he was healthy last year, and he threw 16.1 innings with a 1.10 ERA (2.69 FIP) and a 32.8% strikeout rate. Since Statcast became a thing in 2015, O’Day has held hitters to an 85.6 mph average exit velocity. That is eighth lowest in baseball (min. 400 batted balls).

1. Luis Avilan: 83.6 mph
2. Ryan Yarbrough: 84.6 mph
3. Brent Suter: 84.8 mph
4. Dellin Betances: 85.0 mph
5. Kenley Jansen: 85.1 mph
6. Rafael Montero: 85.4 mph
7. Julio Urias: 85.4 mph
8. Darren O’Day: 85.6 mph (tied with Matt Bowman, Aaron Loup, and Sergio Romo)

Two former Yankees (Avilan and Betances), two current Yankees (Bowman and O’Day), and one former Yankees target (Loup) among the 11 names listed there. I’m sensing a pattern. Anyway, strikeouts and weak contact are O’Day’s thing. Last year’s .194 BABIP was flukishly low. He still has a .255 BABIP in 576.2 career innings. Weak contact equals easy outs.

Lefties went 1-for-10 against O’Day last year and 8-for-40 (.200) against O’Day the last three years, but walks and hit batsmen push it up to a .347 OBP. That’s a nothing sample though. It’s 49 plate appearance spread across three years! O’Day has been better against righties throughout his career, and there will be times he gets stranded out there against lefties because of the three-batter minimum.

The one thing O’Day does is bring a different look to the bullpen, which is something teams (or at least smart teams) have begun prioritizing in recent years. The Rays came at you from all different angles with their pitching staff last season. Ottavino has a lower arm slot, but it’s not as low as O’Day's, who is damn near a submariner. Here are their 2018-20 release points (full size image):

The most interesting thing about O’Day and his arm angle is that he pitches up in the zone with his fastball a ton. A TON. Literally more than any other pitcher the last decade or so, and it’s not close either. Lucas A put together this neat graph with average fastball velocity on the y-axis and percent of fastballs in the upper third of the strike zone (and above) on the x-axis (since 2008 and minimum 1,000 fastballs). O’Day is out on his own little island:

Wild. Absolutely wild. The guy throws 88 mph on a good day and has league average-ish spin, and yet he’ll throw his fastball by hitters up in the zone, like this (video link):

That’s where that pitch was supposed to be! Look where the catcher set up. Releasing the ball from way down there and having it cross the plate way up there is just not something hitters see all that often. O’Day pitches up in the zone like a guy who throws 10 mph harder and has a more conventional release point. Pretty neat. He will bring a different and unusual look to the bullpen, that’s for sure.

A good righty specialist is a necessity given the current American League landscape. The AL East rival Blue Jays (Bo Bichette, Vlad Guerrero Jr., Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Teoscar Hernandez, George Springer) and Red Sox (Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez) have potent righty bats, as do potential postseason opponents like the Astros (Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa) and White Sox (Jose Abreu, Tim Anderson, Eloy Jimenez, Luis Robert).

O’Day is as reliable as 38-year-old relievers get, and with any luck, Aaron Boone will trust him more than he trusted Ottavino. That’ll be up to O’Day to some degree, though I suspect Boone will put him in the Circle of Trust right out of the gate because he’s a Proven Veteran™ and because everyone saw him strike out Alex Rodriguez a bunch of times eight years ago.

Salary dumping Ottavino on a division rival is dumb and the reasons it happened are even dumber. Replacing Ottavino with O’Day is about the best the Yankees could have done under the luxury tax plan. Good, solid move. (I am prepared to die on the “it should be Ottavino and O’Day, not Ottavino or O’Day” hill.)

(I was 1,800 words into a thing on cheap relievers the Yankees could target to replace Ottavino when the O’Day news broke. Here is that post, which I didn’t finish and is not proofread. I guess it’s possible the Yankees could still sign one of those guys. I really should’ve started a content graveyard doc years ago. Dozens of RAB posts went unused for various reasons over the years. Probably hundreds when you include game recaps ruined by late-inning comebacks.)

3. Roster check-in. A lot has changed since we last checked in on the roster 10 days ago. The Corey Kluber and DJ LeMahieu signings are finally official, the Yankees traded for Jameson Taillon, they replaced Adam Ottavino with Darren O’Day, and Masahiro Tanaka is going back to Japan. Brett Gardner is not back yet but it feels like he will be soon.

With Spring Training roughly two weeks away, here’s what the roster looks like at the moment, assuming a 26-man roster with the 13-pitcher/13-position player mandate we were supposed to have last season (asterisk indicates the player is out of minor league options and must pass through waivers to go Triple-A).

The Yankees still have to open a 40-man roster spot for O’Day, so there are 41 40-man roster players listed. That’ll change soon enough. And, as always, several names are interchangeable. Estrada over Wade, King or Kriske over Heller, so on and so forth. The seemingly inevitable Gardner re-signing figures to be bad news for Allen or Tauchman.

I suppose there’s a chance Taillon will begin the season on the injured list so the Yankees can build him up slowly and ease him into things, but I don’t think that will happen, so right now (Deivi) Garcia and Schmidt have been pushed to Triple-A. I’m fine with it. I’d rather they be Plan B than Plan A, and the Yankees can control their workloads more easily in the minors.

That said, I am not opposed to using Deivi and/or Schmidt out of the MLB bullpen, even right out of the gate on Opening Day. There’s value in learning how to get outs at the big league level regardless of role -- I’m convinced Severino would not have become the pitcher he was in 2017 and 2018 without his stint in the bullpen in 2016 -- and if they can help there, go for it.

Realistically, it doesn't look like the Yankees have much more to do this offseason. Re-sign Gardner (it’s going to happen, stop getting mad at me), bring in a good third catcher to stash in Triple-A, and add depth as necessary. It’s possible Chacin, Cortes, (Luis) Garcia, Luetge, Lyons, Warren, and Wojciechowski will be the only non-roster pitching additions. The Yankees might be done there.

When I ran the numbers after the Ottavino trade, I had the Yankees with $12M in spending room under the $210M luxury tax threshold. Slot O’Day into the bullpen and drop a placeholder pre-arbitration-eligible player, and we’re at $11M. That seems like just enough money to re-sign Gardner ($5M?), and then take a couple million bucks into the season as cushion for call-ups and the trade deadline. My guess is the Yankees are just about done for the winter.

Is that roster above better than last year's roster? That will depend mostly on Kluber and Taillon, but also on Gleyber's and Sanchez's ability to bounce back, and Judge's and Stanton's ability to stay healthy. The Yankees had a chance to really drop the hammer this offseason and load up at a time when other teams are scaling back, and instead they played it conservatively. The Kluber and Taillon additions were fine moves, but that's it?

4. Six-man rotation? As Spring Training approaches, there’s a lot of chatter about six-man rotations across baseball. The Padres may use one. The Tigers may use one. The Angels expect to use one. The Mariners will use one even though staff ace Marco Gonzales doesn’t like it.

“(We) are going with a six-man rotation,” Mariners manager Scott Servais told Ryan Divish earlier this week. “And certainly, I’m staying in-tuned to all of our players and where they’re at with it. I know Marco has some reservations about it. I totally understand where Marco was coming from. Marco is one of our best competitors that we have, and he wants to be out there every day. That’s just how he’s wired. I don’t have a problem with that at all, but what we’re trying to do here is make a decision that’s best for the group, best for our organization going forward with what we have today.”

Servais also said he has “talked to people in other organizations and they’re considering (a six-man rotation) too,” and that passes the sniff test. Everything in baseball has been trending toward using pitchers less and less the last I dunno, four decades or so, and a six-man rotation is the natural next step. Add in the fact pitchers will be building back up after a truncated 2020 season, and there’s even more reason to go with a six-man rotation in 2021.

“You have to remember we came off a 60-game season,” Servais added. “Our guys threw 60-70 innings, and now you’re trying to bump them up to hopefully in the 180-range. That’s a big jump … The numbers don’t lie. Guys perform better, their stuff is crisper and sharper (with extra rest). I think it’s absolutely the right way to go for us, based on how we’re built right now.”

The Yankees, as much as any team in baseball, stand to benefit from a six-man rotation this coming season. They have several important pitchers returning from major injuries, they have several young pitchers who will be on innings limits, and then there’s the whole “last year was a 60-game season” thing. Do we need to go through it again? Let’s:

1. RHP Gerrit Cole (amazing)
2. RHP Luis Severino (expected back from Tommy John surgery at midseason)
3. RHP Corey Kluber (coming back from Grade II shoulder muscle tear)
4. RHP Jameson Taillon (coming back from second Tommy John surgery)
5. LHP Jordan Montgomery (has thrown 55.2 innings since 2018 Tommy John surgery)
6. RHP Domingo German (served suspension and did not pitch in 2020)
7. RHP Deivi Garcia (will have workload limit in 2021)
8. RHP Clarke Schmidt (will have workload limit in 2021)

Cole is New York’s best candidate to give consistent innings by a mile and he is entering Year 2 of a nine-year contract worth $324M. He likes to work on a five-day schedule, but the Yankees have to protect their investment here, and the absolute last thing they want to do is push Cole too hard after an unusual season and risk major injury so early in his massive contract.

FanGraphs projections have the Yankees with the best rotation in baseball at the moment, and it’s not all that close either. They’re at +18.3 WAR and the Mets are second at +16.7 WAR. That projection is very Cole heavy, but even if you remove each team’s No. 1 starter (according to the projections and not name recognition), the Yankees are still up there:

1. Padres: +12.8 WAR
2. Yankees: +12.7 WAR
3. Mets: +10.8 WAR
4. Dodgers: +10.7 WAR
5. Athletics and Red Sox: +10.0 WAR

I can’t say that makes me feel better though. Not with Kluber and Taillon coming back from their injuries and Severino with so much rehab still ahead of him. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say Cole is the single most important Yankee heading into 2021, and he’ll certainly be among their most important players from 2022-28. Protecting him is a smart move, ditto Kluber and Taillon, and also Garcia and Schmidt. The Yankees want them fresh and effective come October.

“Obviously there are certain guys like Cole, you know he knows what it’s like to take the ball every fifth or sixth day and get 180 to 200 innings,” pitching coach Matt Blake told Sweeny Murti earlier this week. “I think the hard part is you don’t want to just go in blind and say we’re going to get 200 innings from all these guys. That’s not realistic.”

We still -- still! -- don’t know what rules will be in place in 2021 and another year with a 28-man roster would make a six-man rotation a piece of cake. You can carry your six starters and still have eight (or nine!) relievers. No need to rob Peter to pay Paul with pitching roster spots. Even if the 28-man roster is limited to April, that helps. It will allow teams to be cautious early in the season and be a bit more diligent building their guys up.

A six-man rotation is doable even with a 26-man roster, though it would be a headache. Going with a full-time seven-man bullpen doesn’t seem like a thing that will happen, so now we’re talking about shuttling guys back and forth between Triple-A and MLB to make spot starters. A possible schedule:

• Day 1: Cole
• Day 2: Kluber
• Day 3: Montgomery
• Day 4: Taillon
• Day 5: German
• Day 6: Garcia (reliever sent down, Deivi called up, seven-man bullpen for the day)
• Day 7: Cole (Garcia sent down, reliever called up to get back to eight-man bullpen)
• Day 8: Kluber
• Day 9: Montgomery
• Day 10: Taillon
• Day 11: German
• Day 12: Schmidt (reliever sent down, Schmidt called up because Garcia is subject to the 10-day rule, seven-man bullpen for the day)
• Day 13: Cole (Schmidt sent down, reliever called up to get back to eight-man bullpen)
• Day 14: Kluber
• Day 15: Montgomery
• Day 16: Taillon
• Day 17: German
• Day 18: Garcia (reliever sent down, Deivi eligible to be called back up, seven-man bullpen for the day)

Scheduled off-days and rainouts will throw a wrench into everything, but that’s how a six-man rotation could work with a 26-man roster. The Yankees would have to shuttle in a new starter and a new reliever every six days, so optionable pitchers are important. The downside is the players would hate it. Yo-yoing back and forth is no fun. Players want to stay in one place. We all do.

The Yankees could also get creative and go with a tandem starters for the sixth rotation spot. Why start Garcia or Schmidt when you can go with Garcia and Schmidt? Garcia starts and goes through the lineup two times, then Schmidt comes in and goes through the lineup two times (or vice versa). It’s doable, but this is also one of things that works better on paper than in reality. What if you’re in a close game and it’s the seventh inning and Schmidt has only faced 10 batters? Are you really not going to turn that game over to your high-leverage relievers?

There is potential downside to using a six-man rotation. Specifically, you’re taking innings away from your top starters and giving them to your lesser sixth starter. Ben Clemens ran the numbers recently and found the Yankees would be expected to see their rotation ERA rise 0.73 runs with a six-man rotation, the fourth largest increase in baseball:

1. Padres: +0.91 ERA increase
2. Nationals: +0.78 ERA increase
3. Astros: +0.75 ERA increase
4. Yankees: +0.73 ERA increase
5. White Sox and Red Sox: +0.66 ERA increase

A 0.73 ERA increase sounds scary, but it’s only 12.2 extra runs across a full season, and that’s not that big a difference. Would I trade 12.2 extra runs to ensure Cole and Kluber and Taillon and everyone else stays healthy? Yes, in heartbeat. We can’t guarantee a six-man rotation will keep those guys healthy though. We can only hope. Best laid plans, etc. etc.

(UPDATE: I misread the FanGraphs article. The +0.73 ERA increase is not the difference between a five-man rotation and a six-man rotation. It's how much higher the sixth starter's projected ERA is compared to the other five starters. My bad.)

“I think there’s a volume of arms that can kind of pick up some innings in bunches,” Blake told Murti. “I think it’s just trying to figure out in what order does that happen and how many times in a row do they take the ball. I think it’s just being honest with ourselves about if we need to take a turn here or there.”

The “how” of a six-man rotation can be complicated. The “why” is easy to understand. A six-man rotation ostensibly keeps pitchers healthy and that should be of paramount importance. To MLB too. This should not be a labor issue. Keeping players healthy, including star starting pitchers (the closest thing this sport has to a main character) is in the league’s best interests. If that means sucking it up and the owners supporting a 28-man* roster for a few weeks, so be it.

* If not a 28-man roster, then what about a 27-man roster at least? Or maybe even a 26-man roster with no 13-pitcher/13-position player mandate? Teams showed us they’re willing to roll with a three-man bench to carry an extra pitcher during the 25-man roster era.

Given the fragility in the rotation, employing a six-man rotation in 2021, even if only at the start of the season to ease everyone back into action, makes an awful lot of sense. I’m not saying it would be easy to navigate (26-man roster, etc.) or that everyone will love it (Cole likes to be on a five-day schedule, etc.), but it is worthwhile. These are unusual times for everyone. Anything baseball can do to keep players healthy and productive must be seriously considered.

5. Rapid fire thoughts. Couple details on DJ LeMahieu’s contract. First, Jon Heyman says it is straight $15M a year across the six years. No front-loading or back-loading or anything like that. And second, the deal includes a full no-trade clause in 2021 and 2022, and a partial no-trade clause in the final four years, according to Bob Nightengale. LeMahieu will pick up 10-and-5 no-trade protection after 2023, so there’s really just one year (2023) he won’t be in complete control of his situation with the Yankees. The partial no-trade clause from 2024-26 protects LeMahieu in case he does get traded at some point. The no-trade clause goes with him and he’d be able to use it with his new team … If you put stock in the teams that pursue a player (I do to some extent, it depends on the trustworthiness of the reporter), Joel Sherman reports the Rays pursued both Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon before they landed with the Yankees. I know Tampa made a run at Joe Musgrove as well, another Yankees target. The Rays know pitching, and if they were pursuing two pitchers who wound up with the Yankees, I’ll take that as a good sign. Of course, adding a pitcher to your roster and helping him have success are two different things, and we’ll see whether the Yankees can do the latter with Kluber and Taillon. If nothing else, this suggests they pursued the “right” pitchers, kinda like how the Dodgers and Rays were after LeMahieu before the Yankees signed him two years ago … As expected, no one was voted into the Hall of Fame earlier this week. Curt Schilling came closest to induction and he was 16 votes short. This is the ninth time the BBWAA did not vote a player into the Hall of Fame and this is the first truly empty class (i.e. no inductees at all) since 1958 (the Golden Days Era and Early Baseball Era Committees canceled their vote last month because of the pandemic). Andy Pettitte is the only legacy Yankee on the Hall of Fame ballot and he received 13.7% of the vote. That’s up from 11.3% last year and 9.9% the year before, his first year on the ballot. He’s trending up but not nearly up enough to forecast induction before his 10 years of eligibility are up. Pettitte is going to need to make huge gains and soon to have a chance. I don’t see it. Alex Rodriguez (and Mark Teixeira!) joins the ballot next year. I’m not looking forward to the discourse.

Mailbag Questions of the Week

Brian asks: Now that it looks like Tanaka’s time with the Yankees is officially over, how would you evaluate it? He obviously was good overall but never seemed to pitch on the same pre-elbow injury level that he reached in 2014 which made it a little disappointing in my opinion. Still a good signing and Yankee.

If you were expecting first half of 2014 Masahiro Tanaka all seven years, then yes, you’re going to be disappointed. He had a 2.51 ERA (3.06 FIP) with excellent strikeout (26.6%) and walk (3.7%) rates in 18 starts and 129.1 innings before the elbow injury. From 2015-20, he settled in at a 3.88 ERA (4.03 FIP) and averaged 153 innings per season. Adjusted for ballpark, Tanaka was 11% better than league average those years.

As noted earlier, Tanaka was a top 25 pitcher (by WAR) during his seven-year contract, and I’m not sure how that can be viewed as anything other than a smashing success. He was worth his contract -- FanGraphs values Tanaka’s production at $150.8M* and he was paid $140.5M total (after last year’s prorated season) -- and his value transcended what he did on the field because he’s a global athlete who opened up new sponsorship opportunities and brought in new fans. He wasn’t Max Scherzer on the mound or Ichiro Suzuki at the box office, but he was very good overall, and he was zero maintenance. All big money free agent signings should work out this well.

* $/WAR is way too simplistic because the value of a win is not linear. For example, the 90th win is far more valuable than the 80th win because 90 wins puts you in the postseason mix, and given where the Yankees were in the standings most of Tanaka’s contract, the $/WAR numbers at FanGraphs undervalue him. The wins he brought were worth quite a bit to the franchise.

Greg asks: From your "double whammy" comment about Severino - do you ever see MLB implementing a LTIR concept like the NHL has? In this any long term injured player wouldn't count against the luxury tax. The MLBPA should like it as it opens up dollars (especially for veterans on 1 year contracts to fill in for injured players). The Owners, while having to spend more (real money to injured player + replacement), would be able to have more wiggle room to not go over the tax threshold.

I don’t see it because only a few teams are actually up against the luxury tax threshold, so this rule would only benefit a handful of teams. MLB and owners of non-luxury tax teams will argue this rule hurts competitive balance by allowing rich teams to load up on talent without the same financial consequences. They wouldn’t be wrong, honestly.

Also, I think this sort of long-term injury reserve rule would be a step toward a hard salary cap, and the MLBPA doesn’t want that. It’s bad enough teams are treating the luxury tax as a salary cap. You don’t need to normalize those actions by creating a mechanism intended to help teams with a salary cap crunch. It’ll only give MLB more fuel for their salary cap fire.

Beyond raising the threshold, I think the best way the MLBPA can help itself with the luxury tax is getting player benefits out of the equation. All 30 teams pay an equal amount into the player benefits package each year. It is part of running a baseball team. Want to own an MLB team? You have to pay for baseballs, have a grounds crew, pay into the player benefits package, etc.

Why player benefits are included in the luxury tax payroll, I’ll never understand. That charge is estimated at $15.5M in 2021, so the $210M luxury tax threshold is really a $194.5M player payroll. Get that charge outta there. A long-term injury reserve rule would be nice to have for situations like Severino, but such a rule would help so few teams that I don’t think MLB would go for it.

Chris asks: Undoubtedly this is one of the worst parts about Major League Baseball, but I do need to ask... Are there any potential 2021 service time manipulations that fans should be aware of (Deivi, Schmidt, others)?

Like everything else, service time was prorated last season. Each day on the roster counted as 2.78 days of service time, so even though Clarke Schmidt only spent 11 days on the roster, he accrued 31 days of service time. On the flip side, proration meant the Yankees avoided Super Two status with Miguel Andujar by keeping him down only 23 days rather than the 60 days he would have needed to spend in Triple-A in a normal season.

To figure out how long a player must spend in the minors to delay free agency, all you need to do is add 15 days to his service time days (years don’t matter as long as it’s under six). 172 days of service time equals a full season. Here are a few notable Yankees and how long they’d need to spend in the minors to delay free agency (service time is years.days):

• Jameson Taillon (4.110): 125 days
• Luke Voit (2.169): Would need to spend all year in the minors
• Gleyber Torres (2.162): Would need to spend all year in the minors
• Clint Frazier (2.133): 148 days (a full minor league season, basically)
• Miguel Andujar (2.117): 132 days
• Jonathan Loaisiga (2.022): 37 days
• Domingo German (2.017): 32 days
• Mike King (1.008): 23 days
• Deivi Garcia (0.058): 73 days
• Clarke Schmidt (0.031): 46 days

I wouldn’t worry about service time with any of those guys. Torres and Voit obviously aren’t going to Triple-A, Frazier shouldn’t either, there are bigger problems if Andujar and Taillon spend that much time in Triple-A, and pitchers break. Don’t worry about their service time. If Garcia and Schmidt can help the Yankees win now, get them on the roster and worry about 2027 in 2027.

Sal asks: Can you give an early preview of which prospects will need to be added to 40-man next winter?

Generally speaking, college players drafted in 2018 or earlier, high school players drafted in 2017 or earlier, and international free agents signed in 2017 or earlier will be Rule 5 Draft eligible next offseason. Here are the notable prospects who will be Rule 5 Draft eligible after the season:

• Catchers: Josh Breaux
• Infielders: Ezequiel Duran
• Outfielders: Antonio Cabello, Anthony Garcia, Brandon Lockridge, Everson Pereira, Raimfer Salinas
• Pitchers: Glenn Otto, Addison Russ, Matt Sauer

Shockingly few pitchers! The Yankees had a position player heavy international class in 2017 and the best college pitcher they drafted in 2018 was just traded (Frank German in the Adam Ottavino deal). Sauer was the only high school pitcher the Yankees drafted and signed in 2017. Otto and Russ were passed over in this winter’s Rule 5 Draft, so meh.

German and Canaan Smith (part of the Jameson Taillon trade) will be Rule 5 Draft eligible as well next offseason, and given their current prospect status, they would have been bubble 40-man roster candidates. Smith and German could play their way into no doubt protection status this summer, for sure, but that’s not the Yankees’ problem now.

This will be a huge year for Cabello, Duran, Garcia, Pereira, and Salinas. None have played above the now defunct short season level and they all just lost a year of development to the pandemic. At best, they will each have one season in full season ball before being Rule 5 Draft eligible. Cabello, Pereira, and Salinas in particular have big upside. An important season, this is.

That applies to Sauer as well. He’s the player the Yankees signed with the leftover bonus pool money after they signed Clarke Schmidt below slot (because of his Tommy John surgery), and he threw only 87.1 minor league innings before needing Tommy John surgery himself. Sauer was expected to return in the middle of last year. Instead, he was stuck at home, and this year will be about shaking off the rust and showing everyone he’s worth a 40-man spot.

I don’t see a slam dunk “the Yankees will definitely protect him” prospect. Using MLB.com’s list as a guide, nine of their top 13 prospects are on the 40-man roster, and the other four are still a few years away from Rule 5 Draft eligibility. Pereira (No. 14) is the highest ranked prospect who will be Rule 5 Draft eligible next winter. A lot can change in a season, of course, but next year’s class of Rule 5 Draft eligibles will feature mid-range prospects, no top prospects.

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