Yeah, I think we're mostly on the same page. Maybe I'm a little less quick to dismiss the fade last year. But regardless of the contract, he's on the team and the best play now is to keep on giving him AB.
You know, I don't think anyone in this thread has linked to this very good analysis from last year.
https://www.overthemonster.com/2023/9/7/23862858/masataka-yoshida-will-be-fine-i-think-red-sox-analysis
The takeaway is that he started chasing breaking balls outside the zone in August. Which the author reasonably attributes to exhaustion/lack of focus.
It also points out he's hitting a greater % of ball harder. My own take on that is it sound similar to the Sox standard hitting philosophy. Less contact is OK if the ball is hit harder when it is hit. . .because good things happen. (One of the reasons why I have a concern about the coaching, although this could also be a fatigue byproduct.)
Then, he hit well in ST. .823 OPS, 1:1 K/BB, some power. Which I take as the "physical swing" still being there.
So what's going on now? (SSS!)
Per Savant:
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/masataka-yoshida-807799?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb
It looks like the pitch mix to him is broadly the same. He's getting good results on off-speed stuff, but not producing against FBs. He's also not using the opposite field as much as he did last year. He's swinging less at the first pitch.
But here's the weird thing. If you sort the chart by month, you can compare his good months in 2023 with what he's doing now. His chase% overall is much lower. There are no outliers by pitch type - it's lower across the board. So how about swing/miss? That's lower too. Chase/miss? Breaking balls are a bit higher. In zone swing/miss? Ah! Everything is fine except fastballs.
I wish we had his data from Japan.