Masahiro Tanaka has not been as good as 2014 Masahiro Tanaka or 2018 first-half Luis Severino, but it has been close enough to provide a second-half ace to the Yankees.

And it has been good enough to make me think about a big-picture question: Has Tanaka been worth his seven-year, $175 million price tag?

Of course, all precincts have not weighed in yet since Tanaka is signed through 2020. To this point, Tanaka has not been the No. 1 starter the Yankees envisioned they were buying for $155 million plus $20 million more in posting fees to the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, his Japanese team.

But he has proven worth the investment because of, among other elements, his durability. That sounds strange, since he has been on the DL in four of his five Yankees seasons. Remember, though, the dread in 2014 when it was announced he had a small tear in his elbow after he had pitched well enough in his rookie season to earn an All-Star Game invitation.

It was feared he would need Tommy John surgery, and for a while after, his subsequent poor starts were met by waves of insistence that he go for the procedure — as if it was being recommended he go for a cavity filling and not an operation that would cost him at least a season of his career.

Since the beginning of 2015 — a season he would not have pitched in had he opted for Tommy John — Tanaka has made 109 starts, tied for 34th in the majors. He has thrown 674 innings, which is 25th. And while he has not been the No. 1 starter the Yankees had hoped to import, his ERA in that timeframe has been 16 percent better than MLB average adjusting for league and ballpark. His numbers in this period are not all that different from Gerrit Cole, a pitcher the Yankees tried to obtain, and J.A. Happ, a pitcher whom the Yanks ultimately did land.

Using its calculation system for the dollar value of each win above replacement, FanGraphs assesses Tanaka has been worth $119.7 million, which, if he stays on this trajectory, would make his seven-year value about $170 million.

But there is more to consider in the formula. Nathan Eovaldi, Ivan Nova and Michael Pineda never gained full polish with the Yankees, and each ultimately needed Tommy John surgery. Dellin Betances and Chad Green went from rotation options to bullpen stalwarts, Manny Banuelos did not even amount to that. Sonny Gray has not shown he can handle New York (which should also be points for Tanaka, coming in with huge fanfare and not being overwhelmed). Tanaka and CC Sabathia have battled health problems, but mostly provided starts and innings the Yankees desperately have needed.

Also, Tanaka has a 1.44 ERA in four postseason starts. The Yankees do not get to ALCS Game 7 without him last year. His seven shutout innings in ALDS Game 3 against the Indians steadied the Yankees — after Joe Girardi’s non-replay Game 2 blunder — and triggered a rally to win that series.

If a ranking is done of the best Japanese import starters, I would still rank Hideo Nomo first for his trailblazing and initial excellence and Hiroki Kuroda second for his Pettitte-esque consistency. But because of the playoffs I think Tanaka is ahead of postseason-dud Yu Darvish, whose regular-season highs have been higher than Tanaka’s, but his durability has been worse. Perhaps Shohei Ohtani will outstripe them all eventually, but it was revealed last week that for him to continue pitching he needs the Tommy John surgery that Tanaka has so far avoided.

Before his diagnosis of the elbow injury, Tanaka had made 18 starts in 2014, averaged just over seven innings and posted a 2.51 ERA and .641 OPS against. In his last 14 starts this year, Tanaka has averaged just over six innings, posted a 2.73 ERA and .689 OPS against. Only Boston’s David Price (1.78) has a better second-half ERA among AL pitchers with at least 50 innings than Tanaka (2.30).

It leaves Tanaka as perhaps the best option to start the Oct. 3 wild-card game and is another reminder of how valuable the Yankees’ $175 million man has been.