Red Sox sign Masataka Yoshida
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
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Not sure what this means. More Bloom shade?
Not sure what the other offers were but over a two month period Yoshida was nails. Seem perfectly reasonable that Yoshida hit a wall.
By far the stat that stands out most significantly is bases on balls. He has simply refused to take ball 4 in the second half.
As RR notes, his bat to ball and batter's eye stats are pretty good. He has struck out a little more, but by and large he seems to be seeing the ball fine. His plate discipline has simply gone to hell.
If you divide the season exactly in half by plate appearances (so no cherry picking), he had 27 in his first 265 PAs and has had just seven in his last 265 PAs. I can scarcely believe 7 BB in 265 PAs is possible.
But let's imagine that everything else is exactly the same. He has the exact same year, except that he walked at the exact same rate in the second half (27 instead of 7). It's a pretty dramatic change. He'd be slashing .287/.363/.450 (instead of .287/.337/.444), so top 15 average, top 18 OBP, and top 38 OPS.*
I don't know what this would translate to in WAR, but that's a much better year. Not elite, but pretty good for an MLB rookie.
*To do this calculation, you need to take out 6 hits (5.72 actually but I rounded up) that you assume he wouldn't have with 20 more walks, which means 20 fewer ABs. For purposes of SLG, I made them all singles for simplicity. I don't think that matters too much for purposes of showing the effect of the downturn in walks.
tl;dr -- An outrageously low and difficult to explain walk rate in the second half of his season is having a significant impact on why his numbers look pretty pedestrian. Plate discipline seems to be a really significant issue to work on.
As RR notes, his bat to ball and batter's eye stats are pretty good. He has struck out a little more, but by and large he seems to be seeing the ball fine. His plate discipline has simply gone to hell.
If you divide the season exactly in half by plate appearances (so no cherry picking), he had 27 in his first 265 PAs and has had just seven in his last 265 PAs. I can scarcely believe 7 BB in 265 PAs is possible.
But let's imagine that everything else is exactly the same. He has the exact same year, except that he walked at the exact same rate in the second half (27 instead of 7). It's a pretty dramatic change. He'd be slashing .287/.363/.450 (instead of .287/.337/.444), so top 15 average, top 18 OBP, and top 38 OPS.*
I don't know what this would translate to in WAR, but that's a much better year. Not elite, but pretty good for an MLB rookie.
*To do this calculation, you need to take out 6 hits (5.72 actually but I rounded up) that you assume he wouldn't have with 20 more walks, which means 20 fewer ABs. For purposes of SLG, I made them all singles for simplicity. I don't think that matters too much for purposes of showing the effect of the downturn in walks.
tl;dr -- An outrageously low and difficult to explain walk rate in the second half of his season is having a significant impact on why his numbers look pretty pedestrian. Plate discipline seems to be a really significant issue to work on.
Because BOS/Bloom bid so quickly and so much higher than anyone expected that there really was no bidding war, Yoshida’s agent jumped on it.
Is the lack of walks due to Yoshida being too aggressive or pitchers challenging him more because they know he can’t hurt them? Imagine a combination of both, but anyone smarter than I (so, almost anyone) have any thoughts?
I tried to do some digging on that. Fangraphs has awesome plate discipline numbers, but not (as far as I can tell) broken down by segments of the year.
I think an awful lot goes into walks. But he seems to be pretty competent at putting bat to ball, just generally speaking, so he must have a decent eye. I just don't know how you can fall off a cliff like that. He has two walks in his last 79 PAs. I'm not sure how that can happen even by accident.
That still doesn't really say what other GM's may have had set aside for him. If I'm the first one to put a high bid on a new house and the others were just behind on their ceiling offers, those ceiling offers may not have been much less... and those other bidders then say that their losing bid was lost because the new owner offered a "crazy amount". Why would they ever disclose that they were only a little less? I know that I've lost out on bid jobs in which I was barely higher than another company and I hit my floor. To me, anything less than my floor- even a few thousand for me- is insane.
Also, for what it's worth, Yoshida had a pretty elite BB rate in Japan. 80 walks in about 500 PA in his last season there. I by no means expect him to post a 15% BB rate next year, but it has been baffling to see his plate approach collapse. For whatever reason he just couldn't lay off stuff in the second half this year.
Personally, I expect him to adjust to a long season and to get at least some time at DH and for that BB rate to head back up toward 8 or 9 percent next year.
Personally, I expect him to adjust to a long season and to get at least some time at DH and for that BB rate to head back up toward 8 or 9 percent next year.
If the agent thought that other offers would be anywhere close to Boston's, he wouldn't have accepted it so quickly, just one day into what is normally a 45 day process.
I'm not sure what's unclear here, the size of Bloom's bid on Yoshida shocked literally everyone in the business, the other 29 GMs, all of the national writers, and most importantly Yoshida's agent. Bloom's approach/offer would have looked incredible if Yoshida had performed strongly, but it doesn't look great right now (and of course that can change in future years).
Still not convincing. There's a very likely chance that Yoshida may have wanted to play very badly for Boston for whatever reasons. A very good offer comes in and he or his agent says, "I'm taking that.. that's a really good offer. Maybe other teams will beat it but I want to play in Boston and that's money enough." Other GM's still can get pissy and throw whatever they want to. I just don't buy that other teams valued him so radically less. Likely somewhat less but this "Bloom was dumb for offering so much...." I just don't buy.
No point in further disucssion. Unless there's numbers that other teams actually offered out there I'm not buying what they said to anyone in the media about it.
I feel like the day 1 of 45 part is important. The Sox identified their guy and closed the deal before it devolved into a bidding war. In a market where X had gotten $280m the week before, where Cohen was spending $100m on a closer and 43m/year on grandpa Verlander, that doesn't strike me as a wild or irresponsible move.
Looks like he totally lost the ability to lay off of breaking stuff outside the zone:
https://www.overthemonster.com/2023/9/7/23862858/masataka-yoshida-will-be-fine-i-think-red-sox-analysis
So, then, what is Masataka Yoshida getting beat by? The answer appears to be: Masataka Yoshida. His plate discipline, which was his calling card in Japan, where he’d walked more than he struck out in every season, has fallen apart. Masataka Yoshida’s issue right now is that he’s flailing at breaking balls outside the zone:
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This, believe it or not, actually gives me some hope. He’s still hitting the ball hard; he’s actually swinging and missing at pitches inside the zone less than he was during his May hot streak; and his groundball rate has not returned to where it was during those ugly first few weeks in April. He’s simply getting fooled by breaking balls.
This is not what you’d expect to see from a hitter who has as advanced of a batting eye as Yoshida does; and I don’t think you’ll see it again next season. What we’re seeing right now, I think, is what happens when you absolutely grind a baseball player down to the spikes.
Yoshida played his first competitive game of 2023 all the way back on March 9, when Samurai Japan took on China in Tokyo for the World Baseball Classic. Counting the WBC, he’s already played 130 games in two different hemispheres in 2023, after playing just 120, 110, and 119 in his last three seasons in Japan.
And aside from the mere number of games, there are a number of factors that make the MLB season a total grind compared to NPB season. For starters, travel is significantly easier in Japan. Every Japanese team is located in the same time zone, and teams travel almost exclusively via comfortable, efficient, high-speed rail. There are five teams in the Greater Tokyo area alone, with just 35 miles separating the two furthest ballparks. Imagine if, in addition to Fenway, there were Major League teams in Somerville, Natick, Providence, and Saugus (go, Kowloons!), and the furthest road trip the Sox ever took was to Cleveland. That’s how much easier travel is in Japan.
Japanese teams also get Mondays off every week throughout the season, and over half of the 12 NPB teams, including Yoshida’s old team in Osaka, play in climate-controlled domes. Combine the grueling travel, more extreme weather conditions, and cramped schedule with all of the other challenges he’s facing this year, and it’s not surprising that he’s struggling down the stretch.
Were Chicago fans having this same debate last year after Seiya Suzuki posted a .262/.336/.433 line with an OPS+ 113? This year's .282/.353/.484 OPS+ 122 season probably put that debate to bed. I suspect that Yoshi will do the same next year. Yoshi's .287/.337/.444 OPS+ 109 seems eerily similar to Suzuki's rookie campaign.
Worth noting that despite that mediocre line from Suzuki last year, he was still worth 2+ fWAR because he wasn't a trainwreck defensively and is a good base runner. The problem with Yoshida isn't so much that the offense isn't there right now, because I agree that he'll adjust and likely improve going forward; it's that his only path to being a positive value player is with the bat and as a DH, and he'll need to hit far better to make that role work. If the offense doesn't improve, he's effectively unplayable.
I think it's odd that people seem to discount the possibility that Masa can improve his play of LF. Youkilis mentioned seeing him working at it before games, taking balls off the wall, etc. He may get better---why not?
He's 30 years old, anything is possible but generally at 30 guys are going in the other direction if anything.
There are two things I would like to add to this discussion. One is that Yoshida has a very mild platoon split.
vs. RHH it's .294/.336/.460; vs. LH it's .264/.340/.392. He loses some power and some average, but the OBP stays solid.
The other is that while his chase rate and contact rate on breaking pitches has fallen off the table, his contact quality against them has actually improved as the season has worn on.
Ockham's razor suggests he's just exhausted, but this makes me wonder if he's been toying with a new, almost Devers-like approach, in terms of hunting bad pitches to hit hard.
vs. RHH it's .294/.336/.460; vs. LH it's .264/.340/.392. He loses some power and some average, but the OBP stays solid.
The other is that while his chase rate and contact rate on breaking pitches has fallen off the table, his contact quality against them has actually improved as the season has worn on.
Ockham's razor suggests he's just exhausted, but this makes me wonder if he's been toying with a new, almost Devers-like approach, in terms of hunting bad pitches to hit hard.
He’s making contact- but it’s not good contact. That’s kind of what concerns me; it’s not as if he is likely to cut down on his strikeouts. It’s kind of difficult to see how he suddenly improves.
Maybe he’s tired. But we’ve got a lot of players who seemed suddenly exhausted with a whole ton of season left- how can that he fixed for future years?
Maybe he’s tired. But we’ve got a lot of players who seemed suddenly exhausted with a whole ton of season left- how can that he fixed for future years?
Agreed.
Ownership has so many data points on Bloom and there are so many aspects of the job.
The idea that a bad 2nd half from Masa was somehow a driving force for his firing is... beyond strange.
Yoshida’s defense is not great, but has never screamed unplayable bad either. And the extreme split between pre- and post-slump probably means that neither half season was sustainable. So I’m highly skeptical that the Yoshida signing had anything to do with Bloom’s firing.
There's a thin line between "tired," "worn-down," and "unmotivated." I don't know if you've watched the team or not but Cora's crew isn't exactly embracing the good-fight and keeping their pride intact.
But to what @jon abbey is saying…the fact that the agent accepted it on Day 1, that means that it was a good deal higher than any other offer that was received or any offer they thought they would potentially receive
Bloom looks to have moved decisively (if perhaps not wisely) on offers to pitchers and moving on to the bullpen when the players didn’t accept his offer promptly. I think there was very like a ‘take it or leave it’ nature to his bid for Masa, where that offers no good on day 2.
I get that Masa is older... but he has never in his life played in front of a wall like the green monster. It takes any player time to adjust to the oddities of Fenway. I agree he won't become more athletic going forward, but he certainly could become more efficient and effective as he learns the intricacies of playing left field in Fenway.
Buster Olney in May:
"This is someone who other teams passed on because they didn’t think his defense was going to be good enough."
https://fansided.com/2023/05/07/red-sox-outsmarted-rival-teams-star-masataka-yoshida/
Bloom pretty clearly thought he could hide Yoshida in Fenway's small LF, making him more valuable for BOS than anyone else. Again, we'll see.
I mean we all knew we weren't getting Yastrzemski out there... And no, he will not hit as well as Manny did. But Fenway's left field is the exact field you place a limited outfielder. Manny had total runs saved (according Bref) in LF of -10 in 2003, -11 in 2004, -17 in 2005, -12 in 2006, and -11 in 2007. Yes, Manny is one of the best right handed hitters we will ever see, but was a butcher in the field... Masa is at -3 in 2023.... I mean he hasn't been awful, he just isn't good.
He also DH'd 48 times, only playing LF in 86 games, so that helps his counting stats defensively. Schwarber was clearly terrible and looks way worse on defensive stats than any of the other LF, but Masataka is in the bottom 3 guys if you look at rate stats or prorate his stats to compare them to the other players around him. Profar seems to be slightly worse in everything, Masataka seems to be the third worst, and really quite bad by just about any measure. -9 in OAA, -8 in RAA are really, really bad for only 700 innings in the field. He's -6 in rPM, Profar is -7, and Schwarber is -13! Soto is -8, but played almost twice as many innings. Across the board, the numbers agree that Masataka is a very bad fielder, comfortably in the bottom few. He's not complete and utterly hopeless like Schwarber, but he's closer to him than average. From the UZR component data, it looks like his bad numbers are due to both his range and his arm, and those are not things that get better in your 30s.
To add on to this a bit, the second half slump from first year full time.players coming over from Japanese pro ball is very common.
Ichiro Suzuki (-.020 OPS from 1H to 2H -.020 OPS from Y1 to Y2) (he was also ROY and MVP...)
Hideki Matsui (-.040 OPS from 1H to 2H +.125 OPS from Y1 to Y2)
Nori Aoki (-.050 OPS from 1H to 2H, -.060 OPS from Y1 to Y2)
Kaz Matsui (-.080 OPS from 1H to 2H; -.070 OPS from Y1 to Y2)
Kosuke Fukudome (-.150 OPS from 1H to 2H; +.060 OPS from Y1 to Y2
Seiya Suzuki (-.070 OPS from 1H to 2H, +.060 OPS from Y1 to Y2)
We just have to hope he sees the overall rebound
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I would like to see him traded. Looks like a one tool player to me. Good hit tool, Limited power, slow runner, below average arm and fielding. Fielding is affected by lack of foot speed but there it is. Could the Sox subsidize his salary in a trade for another really good late inning non closer, relief pitcher or a slick fielding center fielder. I would rather see Turner back as DH.
FYI, if you change the 'x' in a twitter link back to 'twitter', it will show up here like it used to.
View: https://twitter.com/PeteAbe/status/1711413991015104782?s=20
As an aside, I saw he was 5th in the AL in average... at .289. Which blew my mind. I know average isn't the most important stat (at all) but.... .289? 5th? I went back as far as 2001 and 5th hasn't been below .300, ever.
Right after the All-Star break, I heard Dave O'Brien mention that Yoshida had not seen his wife or child in person since before Spring Training. I don't know if/when he got to see them during the remainder of the season, but on top of the challenges of moving to a new country and league, not seeing loved ones for that long a time has to take some toll.
Lol it shocked like two anonymous front office sources and two well known pundits not 500 people. Everyone made a big deal because of a few choice quotes.
The fact that Boras agreed quickly is a more compelling argument, but it’s also possible Boras presented the offer to Yoshida, told him it could be topped in a bidding war but was unlikely to go much higher, and asked if he wanted to play for the Red Sox.
No, it surprised literally everyone else in baseball, writers and GMs alike. Kiley McDaniel, probably the most reliable MLB reporter there is these days, talked to 10 different front office people for his piece that is linked early in this thread. The only comparable situation I can remember is when NY wildly overpaid for Jacoby Ellsbury, Boras jumped at that one very quickly also.
And don't put fucking 'lol' in your response unless there's a damn good reason, it's insulting and unnecessary.
According to Fangraphs, he was worth $4.4M this year (0.6 fWAR). That seems painfully low. Even if we double it, he’s not at even half his salary. So I dunno?
2/25? There's some upside still if he can not tire as much down the stretch, but he realistically is a poor defensive LF with fringe average power. Those guys just dont get big contracts.
Not a whole lot less though.
Spotrac has its market value projects for free agents, and puts pending free agent Teoscar Hernandez at 4/72. Hernandez had a 106 OPS+ this year (Yoshida 109) and is just as much of a liability in the outfield. Using that as a basis, Yoshida's deal doesn't seem that far off the mark.
Interesting, but Hernandez hit much better the three years before 2023, 133 OPS+ from 2020-22 combined.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hernate01.shtml
Teoscar Hernandez had three straight seasons in TOR with wRC+ of 130+ and clear 55-60 power. He's been a consistent 2 bWAR/f 2fWAR+ player. I dont think thats a particularly good comp at all.
Edit: Equating them defensively also seems pretty harsh to Hernandez. He can competently cover RF (0 to -5 or so historically). Yoshida is pretty terrible out there and one of the worst OFers in the non Kyle Schwarber division.
Fangraphs has Hernandez at 1.7 fWAR and $14M in value, though.
Feel like people are not realizing or disagreeing with how miserable Yoshida’s defensive, base running metrics are.
Baseball Savant has Yoshida in the 2nd percentile for fielding value and 10th for base running.
Feel like people are not realizing or disagreeing with how miserable Yoshida’s defensive, base running metrics are.
Baseball Savant has Yoshida in the 2nd percentile for fielding value and 10th for base running.
I have often wondered if there's any way to isolate a RS LF's "away" numbers to try to see how much of a discrepancy (if any) there is.