Masahiro Tanaka signs with the Yankees

(Koji Watanabe/Getty)

The Yankees signed 25 year old Masahiro Tanaka to a seven year $155 million contract on top of the twenty million dollar posting fee that they will pay to his former club. At various times it was being reported that Tanaka was close to signing with the Cubs and the Dodgers but the Yankees came in and got their man. The deal is already final as the Yankees officially announced the signing and they DFA David Huff to clear a spot.  This also blows the $189 million plan out the window, but that was kind of to be figured as the Yankees lost a lot of money in ticket revenue last season and they probably figured out that using their monetary advantage was a good thing. Most people have heard about his great numbers in Japan including going 24-0 with a 1.27 ERA average last season in 27 starts and you should check out his numbers here but simply put Tanaka will not be as good in the US as he was in Japan. I guarantee you that in his first bad start people will say that he isn't good enough for the MLB and will call him the next Kei Igawa but almost every pitcher struggles when they first move up a level and even the great and powerful Yu Darvish struggled at times in his first MLB season. Don't bother comparing him to Yu Darvish or Dice-K or any other Japanese pitcher because he is different from all of them and will show that over the course of what I am sure will be a fantastic Yankee career.
In a slightly different note Tanaka may very well end up being the youngest player on the Yankees, he is younger than Preston Claiborne and Dellin Betances and that's very much due to the fact that the farm system has produced very little talent the last few years and the Yankees are so old that they all drink prune juice and tell those damn hooligan teenagers to get off their lawns. Aparently the Yankees have been scouting Tanaka since he debuted at the tender age of 18 in Japan and lets hope that it will pay off because the Yankees needed him and now they need him to be good because right now they still have weaknesses at the infield and in the bullpen and I do mean at the infield because they are basically relying on three bounce back seasons and Kelly Johnson to make a good infield.
Even with Tanaka the Yankees need a lot of things to go right as they will need a bounce back season from CC, Jeter, Teixeira, Brian Roberts and Ivan Nova and the bullpen none of which are a given, but as I said the Yankee are a lot better with Tanaka than they are without him. Brian Cashman has also said that he thinks this is the last major move for the Yankees but lets hope they can still acquire a quality bullpen arm so that David Robertson has some actual support in the earlier innings. Now all we have to do is wait and see what number Tanaka takes as I doubt Kuroda is going to give up 18, Tanaka did wear 17 in the World baseball classic but I am kind of hoping he takes 24.

Yankees avoid arbitration with everyone

Ivan Nova, David Robertson, Brett Gardner, Francisco Cervelli and Shawn Kelely were all eligible for arbitration and the Yankees agreed to deals with everyone but Nova.

Francisco Cervelli signed on the 16th for $700,000 which was less than his projected $1 million but he did have almost no playing time the last two years and was suspended for 50 games this season.  I honestly thought he was going to be non tendered but the Yankees are keeping him at only somewhat above league minimum so its a deal for them. This was his first time through arbitration and so he has two years of team control remaining. Shawn Kelley signed for $1.7625M with a $25 thousand bonus if he appears in 55 games. Kelleys 4.39 ERA is helped by a 3.69 FIP and a ridiculous 11.98 K/9 (31.3 K%) in 53.1 innings across 57 games. Unless the Yankees sign someone I expect that he will be the Yankees setup man this year.  This is also his first time going through arbitration. Brett Gardner received $5.6 million in his last arbitration year which is a decent amount more than his projected $4 million but the MLBPA had said that they thought he would get more than $4million and they were right. David Robertson who projects to be this years closer earned $5.215M which was under his projected $5.5 million, he has one more year of team control and unless something goes horribly wrong his salary will increase quite a bit more than his roughly $2 million raise for this year. Saves pay in arbitration and he could easily rack up a  lot of saves this season. '
Ivan Nova remains unsigned but all that really means is that they could not come up with an agreement today and they will file an amount with the arbitration court and likely agree to a compromise, the Yankees have not gone to an arbitration hearing since 2008 with Chien Ming Wang. 

The Yankees signed Ivan Nova for $3.3 million and so they avoided arbitration with all five of their players signing them for a grand total of $16.58 million. Nova was projected at $2.8 million and so he received half a million more than projected, this is Nova's first time through arbitration and that's always the best for players because its when they starts making bigger money, Nova made $575K last year.