50% of his deal is 27 mil for 3 years.
He had almost 4 months in 2023 where he was excellent with a big slow down the last two months. Decent month to start 2024 followed by June nosedive coming back from injury. The last two months are stellar. Yoshida when healthy hits his way into most lineups.
Plenty of teams need hitting. If Masa could finish the year healthy/hitting like this, eating 50% of his contract could
Look, I'm happy as hell with how he's playing. A 115 wrc+ really lengthens the lineup. I'm happy about that.
The number of players who move up the defensive spectrum in their 30s, particularly to positions they've never played professionally before, is vanishingly small. I don't think there's a chance he attempts 2B, and that's not even taking into account that the organization already has about 150 guys in line for that spot. First base is a bit more realistic a move but Masa is 5' 8" which is rather short for the position. Pablo Reyes is listed at the same height and he played some 1B so perhaps it's a possibility. I don't expect them to go that way though.
I agree that they're lefty-heavy and Yoshida is probably stuck at DH considering the OF we have and who's on the way. However, he's been a 164 wRC+ hitter through July and August. Do you feel the same way if we can expect something like 125-130 wRC+ over the next few seasons?
Him being Arb Eligible after his contract runs out doesn't seem correct. That's not right, is it?
He's technically eligible for arbitration after 3 years in the majors. There's no restriction that his contract must cover all his arbitration years. In this case, it appears his contract covers 2 of his 3 arb eligible seasons. Ohtani, for example, was arbitration eligible in 2023, and signed $30M one-year deal with the Angels (set a record for arb eligible players, since passed by Soto).
I'm not sure if Yoshida is arb eligible in 2029 or not, but Ohtani was a totally different case because he came over to the US at a younger age. He had the same 6 year team control situation that any other regular young player would have, just with a slightly higher signing bonus than most.
The MI is log jammed with players who are younger, more athletic, and make less money than Yoshida. And while they play the position at varying degrees of skill I don't see a 31 year old Yoshida transitioning to 2nd base in order to keep his spot on the team. As for 1st base, the Sox just released a competent LH hitting first basemen because of redundancy. Yoshida would be nothing more than a break glass in case of emergency type fill-in which is fine, but not a reason to keep him. If he stays in Boston it's because they are fine with paying him to be a dedicated DH who may very occasionally play in LF.
Yup, the rule from mlb is:
Functionally, I don't think there's any difference at all between Arb1 and Arb3. Arbitration is arbitration. The numbers just distinguish which year the player is in. Like you say, the key is the 20% cut limit. And presumably, as long as year 5 Yoshida isn't a disaster, he's not going to see a cut in salary for year 6. Maybe he doesn't get a raise, but cuts are fairly rare. I imagine players headed for a salary cut in arbitration are usually non-tendered before they get to that point.
Perhaps I am mis-reading something or its just a poor translation, but are we supposed to believe that Yoshida's shoulder has been bothering him ALL season and he still has NOT had an MRI
What's so unbelievable about it? From the story, it seems it really only hindered his ability to throw and he was not being used in the outfield anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if Yoshida feared/knew what the MRI would show and that as long as he could still swing the bat effectively, he'd tolerate the pain/discomfort in order to keep playing. In fact, it sounds remarkably like what Devers did for the majority of the season. Ballplayers play through nagging things all the time.
Okay, fair point. If Yoshida and similarly Devers kept things to themselves then that would make sense. If however, the team was aware of an ongoing issue for the entire season as Cora alludes to then I would expect them to investigate (MRI) to assure that "playing through" it wouldn't do more harm. In fact, Yoshida's comments to Japanese reporters suggests (possible poor translation) they do have knowledge and surgery is planned which would mean either Cora is out of the loop or he is not being truthful
Moving him in the off season would be practically impossible. Other teams will want to see how he reacts to live pitching following the surgery
With this labrum surgery, that’s a pretty damn awful contract. Maybe not totally underwater but close to it
Yep. Damn awful. Just got harder to subsidize Masa and move for a prospect, but that should still be the next move. Along with Story or should we wait for Trevor's next surgery?
This is nuts. Rusney Castillo wasn't good enough to be a major leaguer. If he was, he would have actually had a major league career. Masa has put up two above average seasons as a major league hitter (111 OPS+). They're not going to DFA him. He's not going to be outrighted to the minor leagues. He won't be playing out his contract in Worcester.
Both are problems. The team OPS+ was 104, slightly above average. You're not going to win a division with that kind of offense unless you have great pitching and defense. When you have none of those things, you have a .500 team.
I'm not sure I agree. We had a top ten guy in Duran, a 4 fWAR player in Devers, a 3 fWAR rookie in Abreu, and Tyler O'Neill gave us 2.5 fWAR in 113 games.
If we're going to go the hindsight route we also have to look back at his 2022 season when the majority of the membership here was pissed that Bloom didn't unload him at the trade deadline for anything that he he might get. And while he had a great bounce back in '23 with the Dodgers, I'm not sure I'd rather him of Yoshida this past season other than him hitting from the right side
Agreed. Obviously, the Sox wish Yoshida was healthy and at peak performance, but they are extremely well positioned to absorb the cost and let him rehab, with the hope that he can put up numbers above and beyond this year's stats when healthy.
Yeah. We saw comparable contracts handed out to guys like Soler, who got 3/42 from the Giants.
Also, a bad contract, signed by a GM that has since been fired (and somehow did even less with what many of us would consider a "smart" organization than Bloom did in his time in Boston). Though for what it's worth (on AAV) Soler is signed for a year less and at $4m less than Yoshida, for better production (at least using career OPS+ and wRC scores). The Braves will pay 2/$32 in real money (but only 2/$28m/$14m in terms of AAV).
If the Soler contract is so terrible, then why did Atlanta trade for it?
1) Because it fit a very specific need for them (RH bat to in replace Duvall as he was something worse than a black hole of suck as the supposed RH bat).
Yeah, this is pretty persuasive. I don't think we're in as much disagreement as it might appear. You're probably right that it'll be harder to move him than I think, but we'll see!
Sure, if everyone is healthy, the team will be better. But there's still some wishing and hoping going on. Cedanne wasn't hurt and looked incapable of letting a pitch go without swinging, Casas has never had a .900 OPS in a season at any level in his career. There are stretches where he looks like someone who should be a top 5 hitter in the league, but it hasn't happened yet. Devers always seems to have nagging injuries that kill his Septembers. Story hasn't hit for power since leaving Colorado. Duran could be the guy he was from April to August this year, or he could be the one from September and the rest of his career.
