MLB New York Yankees

Hiroki Kuroda An Underrated Loss For New York Yankees

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By @ogab_3

hiroki kuroda

Brad Penner – USA Today Sports

Somewhat quietly, New York Yankees pitcher Hiroki Kuroda retired this week — though not officially.

Officially, he announced that he would move back and finish his pitching career in Japan for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp. The 39-year-old pitched for the Yankees for three seasons, with three with the Los Angeles Dodgers before that. Even though he was 39 and could have had a better year last year, losing a pitcher like Kuroda hurts the Yankees’ rotation,

Kuroda was the model of consistency while stateside. In an era where at least one full year lost to arm surgery is expected from most pitchers, Kuroda bucked the trend. Over the past five seasons, he has made the fifth-most starts in the major leagues with 160. To add to that, he did that in his age 35-39 seasons. The next oldest person to him on the top 10 list was Dan Haren in his 29-33 seasons.

It wasn’t as though the Yankees were just running him out there every fifth day to get hammered. He was giving them quality innings almost every time he pitched. His ERAs in his three years in New York were 3.32, 3.31, and 3.71. He gave them a WAR of 12.0 through his three seasons, a quality mark.

Kuroda has never been a dominant pitcher, nor was he ever really expected to be. He had decent SO/9 numbers (around 6.6) but his BB/9 was more impressive at 1.87. He did exactly what the Yankees expected him to, which was give them quality innings and put them in a position to win every game.

The big news for the Yankees’ rotation this season is that they will get ace Masahiro Tanaka back from one of those aforementioned arm injuries. This is great for them as he can be a game-changing pitcher capable of taking over. However, it would be nice to have a pitcher like Kuroda in the No. 3 spot, giving the Yankees at least a solid shot of winning three in a row with Tanaka, C.C. Sabathia and Kuroda.

He won’t go down as an amazing pitcher, but Kuroda deserved a lot of credit for being an above average starter night in and night out. He will be missed by the Yankees.

Owen Gabbey is a baseball writer who also contributes for the NFL for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter @ogab_3, “Like” him on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google. 

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