Fantasy Baseball: 5 Pitchers With Noteworthy Spring Training Stats

Masahiro Tanaka, New York Yankees

Each of his three years in the league, Masahiro Tanaka's strikeout rate and walk rate have both moved the wrong way. He suffered a partially-torn UCL in 2014, so this fits a narrative that Tanaka is a risky fantasy asset.

Any up-tick in strikeouts this spring would be enough to justify a second look at Tanaka. He's producing exactly that.

After getting a late start in the spring, Tanaka has faced just 29 batters so far; he has struck out 13 of them while walking none. This is a smaller sample than we have on most pitchers, meaning we should put less stock into it, but it is superbly encouraging.

Tanaka's control has always been elite, and he has never had issues with hard contact. A lack of strikeouts has been what has prevented him from regaining the insane levels he reached in his rookie year. Again, it's far too early to start saying that he's back to that form, but we should keep watching his stat lines as the spring progresses to see if he can keep it up.