Yankees Masahiro Tanaka in Tight Race for AL Cy Young Award

Masahiro Tanaka has a strong case to be the first New York Yankees pitcher to take home an American League Cy Young Award since Roger Clemens in 2001.

Coming into Friday, there appears to be an extremely close five horse race for the 2016 American League Cy Young award. One of the contenders is Yankees ace Masahiro Tanaka.

According to FanGraphs’ wins above replacement metric, the most valuable pitchers in the AL thus far have been Chris Sale of the White Sox (4.7 WAR), Corey Kluber of the Indians (4.6 WAR), Masahiro Tanaka of the Yankees (4.5 WAR), and Jose Quintana of the White Sox (4.5 WAR).

The numbers of those four pitchers are extremely close across the board. The difference between their WARs is negligible, their ERA and FIP numbers are all within a few points of each other, and they have very similar innings totals.

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Sale and Kluber have the edge in wins with 15 each, while Tanaka and Quintana have 11. That doesn’t matter as much as it used to, but there are voters who take it into account. Kluber has the gaudiest strikeout rate at 9.26 K/9, while Tanaka has been the most effective at limiting free passes (1.46 BB/9) and homers (0.88 HR/9) of the group.

Interestingly, the player who many see as the favorite for the AL CY, Cole Hamels of the Rangers, ranks well behind this group with just 2.8 WAR. This is because while his run prevention has been excellent this season (2.91 ERA ranks second among qualified AL starters), his peripheral statistics have been just solid, not CY levels.

At the moment, there is no clear frontrunner, which means whoever pitches the best in September will likely take home the award. That may work in Tanaka’s favor, as he has been firing on all cylinders lately.

In his last five starts, Tanaka has a 1.93 ERA and 2.35 FIP in 32.2 innings pitched. He’s allowed just one walk while striking out 34 batters in that time. He’s given up just two earned runs in his last three starts.

With the Yankees fighting for a postseason berth, Tanaka couldn’t have picked a better time to get locked in. He’s giving them an excellent chance to win every time he takes the mound. New York is 12-2 with their ace starting for them over their last 14 starts, and 20-7 on the year.

If Tanaka was to win the award this season, he would join a very select group of Yankees pitchers to receive the honor since its inception in 1956. Only five players in history have won the award while wearing the pinstripes: Bob Turley (1958), Whitey Ford (1961), Sparky Lyle (1977), Ron Guidry (1978), and Roger Clemens (2001).

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That’s pretty elite company to be in for a guy many still decline to give the “true ace” moniker to. Hopefully Tanaka takes home some hardware this year so he is finally recognized as being one of the top starting pitchers in baseball.