Masahiro Tanaka is one of the most recognizable faces in Japanese baseball, but sightings of the star pitcher were few and far between in 2024.

He started only one top-team game for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles — allowing four runs in five innings — and made five appearances for the farm team, throwing just 28 innings overall.

Tanaka spent the first several months of last year rehabbing in the minors after surgery to clean out his elbow late in 2023 and never regained his peak condition. But he had not looked like himself before the surgery, either, posting a 4.91 ERA in 139⅓ innings in 2023.

Tanaka took a pay cut before the 2024 season. The Eagles’ offer for 2025 included a cut that surpassed the 40% limit placed on reductions for players making over ¥100 million. That gave Tanaka the option to walk, leading to a surprise divorce between the Eagles and the most celebrated player in franchise history.

He signed with the Yomiuri Giants in December and began his new chapter on Saturday when the Kyojin opened spring camp in Miyazaki.

Beyond the curiosity of seeing Tanaka in a new NPB uniform and wearing a new number (No. 11) after so many seasons with the Eagles, the main question around the 36-year-old is whether he can revive his career in a new setting.

The Giants, who enter the season without pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano, who signed an MLB deal with the Baltimore Orioles in December, are counting on Tanaka to bounce back.

Yomiuri won the Central League pennant in 2024 but fell short of the Japan Series. The club added catcher Takuya Kai and reliever Raidel Martinez to help strengthen the roster, but neither move addressed a need as glaring as the hole Sugano leaves behind. That is what Tanaka was brought in to help with.

The good news for “Ma-kun” and the Giants is that the team has recent experience getting a star pitcher back on track.

Sugano himself was a reclamation project after an injury-plagued 2023 season that saw him pitch 77⅔ innings. He bounced back in a big way in 2024, finishing 15-3 with a 1.67 ERA in 156⅔ frames and winning the Central League MVP award.

Many viewed pitching coach Yasuo Kubo as one of the keys to Sugano's revival. Now he has Tanaka's ear, and he spent a lot of time on Saturday working with the right-hander on his form and his movement, according to media reports.

Kubo, who pitched for 20 years before serving as a coach for various clubs, can underline his credentials as a pitching whisperer if he can work his magic two years in a row.

Tanaka reportedly entered camp ready to make wholesale changes to get back on track. He went over past footage with Kubo before camp opened and has plenty of time before the start of the season to continue to make tweaks.

“I’m getting to where I want to be,” he told Sports Hochi on Saturday.

Tanaka’s best years are behind him, but he was solid in 2021 and 2022, pitching better than his win-loss record. Those seasons, though, preceded a 2023 campaign where he surrendered at least five runs in 5⅓ innings or fewer in eight of his 24 starts.

The Giants think Tanaka can overcome the dip he had in 2023. Manager Shinnosuke Abe said in December he thinks Tanaka will be aiming for double-digit wins.

Tanaka was one of the very best pitchers of his generation at the outset of his career. He had an amazing run from 2009 to 2013, when he posted a 1.79 ERA in 956 innings. He won two Sawamura Awards and a Pacific League MVP and led the Eagles to their first-ever pennant and Japan Series title in that stretch.

He followed that with seven seasons with the New York Yankees in MLB, going 78-46 with a 3.74 ERA in 1,054⅓ innings. He was a two-time All-Star in the majors and, according to the Baseball Reference model, was worth 17.3 wins above replacement.

Tanaka is just 20-33 with a 3.73 ERA since returning to Japan in 2021.

Signing Tanaka makes business sense for the Giants. He is a big name and will almost certainly get the three wins he needs to reach the 200-win milestone (between NPB and MLB) in a Yomiuri uniform.

Tanaka said in December, though, that he expects to earn more than those three wins and wants to prove he can still pitch at a high level. He is also motivated by the bitter memory of 2024 when he was 0-1 with a 7.20 ERA, the only winless season of his 18-year career in NPB and MLB.

“It was the first season where I could not do anything, so I was disappointed,” Tanaka said at his introductory news conference with the Giants in December. “I definitely want to bounce back in 2025.”

Yomiuri has not won a Japan Series title since 2012, and Tanaka helped block the Kyojin’s path in the Japanese Fall Classic in 2013.

Now, after being out of sight and out of mind for a year, the former ace pitcher is preparing to step back into the spotlight in the hope he can help carry himself and his new team back to glory.