Calling Yoshida signing a mistake is a uniformed comment that is far too quick to judge. A 29 year old free agent putting up those numbers in mlb would get a contract similar to if not more than Yoshida got from us. Was not mediocre nor redundant.
Year Two Yoshida
- Thread starter bosox1534
- Start date
YMMV, I guess, but if $18M is the going rate for 0.6 WAR these days, then the economics of baseball really are broken.
And on the subject of redundancy, how about getting exactly the same 0.6 WAR from a late-promoted minor league outfielder in 495 fewer plate appearances?
Yoshida is a defensive liability devoid of baserunning value that, from mid-July on, walked at a 3.2% rate and posted a .113 ISO while consistently being exposed by major-league velocity. In the time it took to type this, he grounded out to second—twice.
Yoshida likely would still receive a major-league contract based on his NPB career but there is not a team in baseball that would offer him more than $70 million for the next four years. There was only one such team last year.
Using WAR as the only argument to how good a player is is not a great argument. I understand the usefulness of the stat to an extent, but it has flaws. Brett Gardner had a season with a higher WAR than Juan Soto has ever had in a season. I can guarantee you Juan Soto has never had a worse season that Brett Gardner.
It all depends on which Yoshida shows up. If it’s the first half version, we’re all pretty good with the contract probably. If the second half version shows up, we’ve got a problem.
I watched probably 100 Red Sox games and I never considered Yoshida a liability on defense. Just because a made up complex stat says he isn’t a good defender isn’t going to mean more to me than just watching the game.
Then you must have seen his complete inability to go back on the ball. That's not a big deal at Fenway where you can park yourself in front of the Monster, but on the road he's not good. I think outfield defense in general is overrated by WAR in this high strikeout era, so getting Yoshida out of left isn't a priority. But let's not pretend he's good in the field.
He’s not exceptional in the field, but I also don’t think he’s bad. Honestly it probably doesn’t matter anyway because I think he’s going to be a DH full time next year.
The second half was dreadful but is it a reach to think he was run down playing more games a week, more travel, new pitchers, new league, etc?
Yoshida was excellent through July but bad in August and September. Justin Turner was worse in September. I am hoping for a more streamlined year at the plate and an OPS+ of 120+. Suzuki on the Cubs played better in year two. Fingers crossed.
Definitely not a reach in my mind. We don’t really know what Yoshida is at this point but we know what he’s capable of, which is comforting to me. His first 4 months were very good, especially considering the transition. This time last year, many had written off Seiya Suzuki, as you wrote, and then he went out and played much better in 2023. Something similar happening with Masa wouldn’t surprise me at all.
I don’t honestly know how you could watch him and not think he’s bad. He was very very bad. Maybe cause he doesn’t drop the ball? His range was horrible, his arm strength very bad, his jumps are poor.
He was bad. It’s not just fWAR that thinks he was bad. He ranked as one of the worst OAA for qualifying players in all of baseball by Savant.
Almost all baseball statistics are made-up, numerators and denominators selected from a subset of events in an attempt to explain why one team crosses home plate more than another. But DRS, OAA, and UZR all agree that Yoshida is a defensive liability. If you are unwilling to trust any statistic under 30 years old, though, there is also the more qualitative assessment that his routes regularly resemble Buster Keaton chasing a dollar bill through a wind tunnel.
Which underscores another point. If you allow him to just hit or mostly DH, will he remain fresher over the course of the season? I know it limits other bad defenders on the team from DH’ing but there could be a double benefit to making Yoshida the primary DH.
I can envision Rafaela playing a Tony Phillips role and getting DH at bats for Yoshida, Grissom, Devers and others who have defensive challenges.
In addition he played in the WBC prior to the season beginning, that won't be happening for the next few years.
baseball reference has Yoshida at 1.4 WAR. does he lose some because of his fielding?
The Suzuki comparison is interesting. His first year he only played 111 games at a 116 wrc+, then improved that to 138 and 126 this year.
Yoshida's first 111 games (of 140) this year (through 8/22) he had a 117 wrc+ and that was already nearly a month into his decline period. At the end of July his wrc+ was 128.
Between adjustments to American baseball, better conditioning in preparation for the full season and not starting a month early for the WBC, I see no reason not to project improvement for year 2.
I know it is not really that comparable, but I remember switching from working overnight for many years to a 7-3 job. It took me a long time to adjust to my new routine and feel normal again. Some probably adjust better than others, but I think he will improve quite a bit next season, just having living through the first season and knowing what he is up against. I know he was probably given all the advice in the world about it, but doing it is a different story. I still remember wanted to throw my alarm clock out the window at 5:30 AM months after switching shifts, and that was just a small change in the scope of things.
Fangraphs and B-Ref have different ways that they calculate WAR. His fielding most definitely hurt his WAR total on both sites. It's likely that Fangraphs' defensive components disliked Masa's play more than B-Ref's.
Yoshida is almost certainly an underwater contract to some degree. No chance we could trade him without having to eat some $.
The best argument for him potentially not being under water is the massive 1st half/2nd half difference and hoping the 1st half is closer to reality going forward.
Taking his 2023 in totality, he would definitely not get his remaining contract on the open market.
Benintendi got 5/75M being a mediocre defender and absolutely no power, and I think Yoshida is a much superior offensive player.
I don't understand the argument here.
Everyone thought we overpaid for Yoshida and his 1st year overall was bad. How could he not be underwater at the moment?
I’m arguing that a similar player to Yoshida wouldn’t get a similar contract on the open market. Also per BTV Yoshida still has a 3.3M surplus.
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Similar to what? First half Yoshida gets that contract.
The guy the Giants signed plays better defensively but can’t hit like Yoshida… he got a big bag.
It's underwater only if you assume his second year will be as bad as his first. And "bad" is relative - he put up a 109 OPS+ which was good for #30 in the AL. . .even after completely falling off the table in Aug. and Sept. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=yoshima02&year=2023&t=b
If he can keep up his production he'd likely be in the mid .800s. (His first half OPS was .874.)
If he does that, meh defense or not, he'd be a very valuable player. An .850 would be neck and neck with 2023 Devers and Casas who were the number 6 and 7 batters in the AL last year.
Thank you for taking a more optimistic approach compared to the rest of these guys wanting to give up on the guy.
Sure, he could improve next year, we all hope he does. He obviously showed some talent in the 1st half.
But as far as his current value in the marketplace, its almost surely less than his remaining contract.
There is no chance in my mind we could trade him (even for non prospects) without eating some of his contract or taking a similarly bad contract back.
OK, yeah I'd definitely take Snell at 3/90 or 4/110, and 5/125 is probably fine as well. I do agree that he's likely to go for more than that though, and I'd be pretty squeamish above 5/125.
As to the Yoshida discussion, I think it would be silly to trade him now. I think odds are good that he bounces back unless there is some sort of underlying, undisclosed chronic injury in play. I agree that his value is probably negative now and thus we'd get little to nothing in return. I don't expect it to stay that way though.
He signed a 5 yrs/$90M (23-27) contract. He has 4 years left at $18M per year.
That's probably a bit rich for a DH on the back 9 of their career who is going year to year. But it's not so much for an age 30-34 theoretical top 10 hitter who can play LF when needed. You could think of him as a very rough JD Martinez comp - lighter on power, but not an absolute butcher in the field. Much more affordable contract though than JD had for those years.
It really all hinges on his bat. He was excellent for 3 of the first four months, very good for the other, and then cratered for the final two.
I’m very bullish on Yoshida, but I do wonder how he would feel about being a full time DH. Some players thrive, but others don’t.
Why are we even having discussions about trading Yoshida? Does anybody here think there's even a 5% chance of that happening? I'm not aware of any rumors involving him other than those originating on this board by members here.
I don't think there is a chance and it would be foolish to move on from him without reestablishing whatever value a not cheap DH would have as it's basically JDM-lite. Breslow certainly wouldn't care about moving on from Bloom guys.
I also think he'll bounce back a bit. His plate discipline was something else in the first half. You've gotta think a lot of it was pressing as you don't suddenly lose your batting eye at age 29.
Sure teams would pay that for a top 10 hitter. No one thought he was that before he came over (Red Sox were by far the high offer) and nothing that happened in the past year likely changed their minds.
If the Sox trade him this offseason, they are eating a significant amount of money. For that reason, they arent likely to make a move and hope that he can at least be closer to late career JD Martinez and maintain a 120 OPS+ and a bit higher wRC+.
For me, Yoshida was incredibly frustrating to watch. The weak contact to the infield was as frustrating as the ugly JD Martinez swings in 2022. It's not a bad contract, but he as incredibly streaky last year and the cold streaks were painful.
Yeah like Duran when he was a rookie two years ago, although at least Duran could talk to people and order food at restaurants. Patience…
Masataka Yoshida is not a rookie. He's 30 years old. His athletic ability is already sloping downwards. If we're banking on Yoshida having a BABIP-inflated bounce back in two years to bring him up to Jarren Duran's rarified 2.1 bWAR in order to salvage the deal, then it's an even worse deal than we think.
Totally disagree. You don't know his athleticism is declining, you are assuming that because of his age. My point is that it's a huge adjustment to MLB and that it almost always takes time, possibly multiple years, but from your Duran mention I guess you missed the point.
The question is whether a book was established on Yoshida that changed the way he was pitched in the second half which caused his walk rate to crater while his K rate skyrocketed and his power disappeared. Obvious counter to that is that he was worn down and tired from a long season. Projection systems seem to expect him to perform more like he did earlier than later, but guess we will see.
I think he will have a good career in MLB. The home stretch was rough on all of us last year.
That too is pretty typical of rookie batters. And then they are forced to make adjustments. Yoshida is pretty advanced so I would think he can respond, but we'll see.
Slumps are inevitable and while it was lengthy I think we should give him a little slack before
Writing him off.
Fine to be a Yoshida optimist (I am) but ‘this fan base has also been waiting for that instant gratification’ for several years while getting objectively horrible baseball and last in division finishes.
Yes I was alive in ‘21, no it didn’t change my opinion of the post Mookie FO. Henry is grateful that he doesn’t need to get uncomfortable with the money buckets while we decry another year or two (more?) of patience and counting.
Is there no part of you that fears the bait and switch? That they perhaps had more World Series than even they expected and are good to ride it out with loyalists cheering past success?
It’s on the table
Yoshida (and really even the offense) isn't a problem I'm anticipating this year. I would anticipate that their offense as currently constituted (and assuming Teoscar) could be anywhere between 8-15th in baseball barring major injuries. It could absolutely be improved upon, but I'm far less concerned about that than the pitching staff.
Could we potentially move the Yoshida talk to its own post or an already existing thread? And move this back to rumors?
I was listening to the SoxProspects pod over the weekend, and there was a bit about Yoshida that was interesting.
Apparently, the way that UZR or fWAR is constructed (I forget which) penalizes Fenway left fielders. Essentially fly balls that go off the monster for a hit that would be caught in other ballparks are counted as a negative for the left fielder. If there is a sky high flyball that travels 325 ft in the air and hits right above the AL east scoreboard, it is a ding against the fielder since that ball is caught the majority of the time.
He isn't Andruw Jones out there obviously, but it feels like the fielding analytics may not tell the full story.
Anyways I think the guy was physically and mentally gassed by the all-star break. He hadn't seen his newborn child and wife all season, and was playing in multiple different time zones for the first time in his career. The optimistic fan side of my brain hopes that he has a Seiya Suzuki-like bounce back season in '24, granted Masa is about 2 years older. Suzuki improved in most offensive metrics in his 2nd big league season
Apparently, the way that UZR or fWAR is constructed (I forget which) penalizes Fenway left fielders. Essentially fly balls that go off the monster for a hit that would be caught in other ballparks are counted as a negative for the left fielder. If there is a sky high flyball that travels 325 ft in the air and hits right above the AL east scoreboard, it is a ding against the fielder since that ball is caught the majority of the time.
He isn't Andruw Jones out there obviously, but it feels like the fielding analytics may not tell the full story.
Anyways I think the guy was physically and mentally gassed by the all-star break. He hadn't seen his newborn child and wife all season, and was playing in multiple different time zones for the first time in his career. The optimistic fan side of my brain hopes that he has a Seiya Suzuki-like bounce back season in '24, granted Masa is about 2 years older. Suzuki improved in most offensive metrics in his 2nd big league season
If Yoshida can improve his defense a little, his bat is solid enough. He's not a superstar, but I'll take a 109 ops+, 33 doubles and 15 homers. That's above average and would be just fine.
I think the people that are so quick to write Yoshida off are really jumping the gun. He had a very good stretch, not insignificant in length, where he was one of the better hitters in baseball with command of the zone and the ability to drive the ball a bit. I don’t think it’s completely out of the realm of possibility, or even all that unlikely, that a year of experience in the US under his belt and a normal off-season does him good. Even with those factors thrown in and his late season fall off, the final line still looks wholly respectable.
Feels like he’d become a much better player if he simply was moved to DH. He is an awful defensive player and he tired during the season- doesn’t moving him to full (or at least majority) time DH solve both of those problems. I imagine this is going to happen eventually, and that they just have to figure out how to do it respectfully.