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.