That’s the beautiful thing about baseball. He can phone it in and still get paid the same.
Red Sox sign Masataka Yoshida
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
- Start date
Hard to be enthusiastic about Verdugo in RF, that's for sure. Don't we still need a DH? Or is that (ugh) Hosmer?
I thought one of the goals of the off-season was increasing the teams power; did they give up on that?
Surprised no one posted any of his press conference where he introduced himself in English.
View: https://twitter.com/JomboyMedia/status/1603503122122416138?s=20
Maybe one of the most humanizing and endearing things I’ve seen at an introductory press conference.
I know we all care about baseball and stats and stuff, but we sometimes forget what a guy moving from Japan to the US to play baseball actually means at times.
Also, an absolutely incredible set of teeth.
View: https://twitter.com/JomboyMedia/status/1603503122122416138?s=20
Maybe one of the most humanizing and endearing things I’ve seen at an introductory press conference.
I know we all care about baseball and stats and stuff, but we sometimes forget what a guy moving from Japan to the US to play baseball actually means at times.
Also, an absolutely incredible set of teeth.
Yup. It’s going to be a huge culture shock for Yoshida but he seems like a genuinely good person that’ll be easy to root for.
My takeaways from seeing some quotes from the press conference:
--Yoshida was shocked how much he got paid
--Boras only negotiated with 1 team
--Chaim wants him to bat leadoff, Yoshida dislikes hitting leadoff
--Yoshida has never met any of the Red Sox Front Office
Something tells me Chaim didn't love how that went.
On the bright side, everyone seems to think he's highly likable and is rooting for him.
--Yoshida was shocked how much he got paid
--Boras only negotiated with 1 team
--Chaim wants him to bat leadoff, Yoshida dislikes hitting leadoff
--Yoshida has never met any of the Red Sox Front Office
Something tells me Chaim didn't love how that went.
On the bright side, everyone seems to think he's highly likable and is rooting for him.
Chaim completely misreading the free agency market feels pretty on-brand to me.
Honestly, it isn’t my money, and I hope he enjoys Boston and plays baseball well because he seems like a lovely human.
This is off to an inverse-Carl Crawford start. Hope this goes better than that FA signing for all concerned.
A writer asked Bloom specifically if Yoshida would hit leadoff. Bloom said he has the skillset to do it, and hit other places in the lineup, and that they would see how the roster shapes up, and that it was Alex Cora's call. So I feel like he wasn't saying "Chaim wants him to bat leadoff" as Radsoxfan did, is not accurate
That intro made me love him 3000. I’m a big fan of having a couple of guys (Kenley) that seem entirely easy-to-root-for come in in the heels of losing X, whom I loved.
Boras, discussing the Yoshida and Bogaerts contracts:
Bogaerts’ 11-year, $280 million deal with San Diego was worth well more than the Red Sox were willing to offer in years and money. Boras was asked if the Red Sox miscalculated the market.
“I’m not sure it’s about miscalculation. It’s about choices. You choose to pursue players like they chose to pursue (Yoshida) at levels that many other teams didn’t have him at,” Boras said. “Teams chose to pursue Xander at levels that some teams didn’t have him at. You see that in the industry.”
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2022/12/scott-boras-says-xander-bogaerts-valuation-didnt-fit-red-sox-current-model.html
Entirely possible, I didn't see the press conference, just a bunch of quotes. Maybe something was lost in translation.
Yoshida said through interpreter Keiichiro Wakabayashi that he had never hit leadoff before and that he’s not confident in his abilities to do so. Bloom disagreed.
“It’s not something we discussed with him in advance… These skills are going to play wherever and let’s see the roster we end up with as we get closer and closer to Opening Day,” Bloom said. “Alex and the crew will figure out the best way to line them up in order to win a ballgame."
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2022/12/red-sox-view-masataka-yoshida-as-leadoff-option-likely-starting-left-fielder.html
At least Bloom is consistent in not liking to discuss anything in advance with his ballplayers.
Can you imagine trying to learn enough Japanese in a short amount of time to speak it at a press conference in Japan? I can't wait to root for Masataka.
Yeah I hope the contract isn’t held over his head by fans. Chaim not talking to him about hitting lead off before putting all that money into the signing seems arrogant and weird. But, I’ve never worked in baseball.
It is likely worth mentioning that the translator missed a lot of what was said both by Yoshida himself and the reporters speaking in Japanese. Unfortunately my Japanese isn't good enough to productively parse the video, but I do know enough to know a great deal was lost, missed, or mistranslated.
Almost all of Yoshida's tone was lost as well, which I suppose is to be expected, but I think even an average live interpreter would have done a better job. Yoshida's answers to a couple of the more major questions, like "What did you think when the Red Sox pursued you so quickly?" (or something to that effect) were short in an amusing, possibly endearing way.
Almost all of Yoshida's tone was lost as well, which I suppose is to be expected, but I think even an average live interpreter would have done a better job. Yoshida's answers to a couple of the more major questions, like "What did you think when the Red Sox pursued you so quickly?" (or something to that effect) were short in an amusing, possibly endearing way.
FWIW, this is always the case with these things, my wife is Japanese and a translator, and she always laughs about how badly the interview translations are.
I would say so, although the Red Sox have employed a translator in recent history that I thought was quite good. Not sure why he wasn't there? Maybe this was Boras's translator? Or Yoshida's?
Edit: the translator I'm thinking of is Yutaro Yamaguchi. https://www.linkedin.com/in/yutaro-yamaguchi123/
Yeah, like this dude Yamaguchi working with Sawamura is just infinitely better than the dude yesterday: View: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=465728071231511
Quoting myself from Sunday…
I think Bloom already looks a bit better on this one after Benintendi gets 5/75, now we’ll see how they perform.
This guy was really not great for a professional interpreter (if that's what he is), and as A Bad Man pointed out there are far better out there. Not quite as bad as the guy who translated for Matsuzaka at his press conference but still pretty bad. Not sure why they couldn't have found someone better. I know my wife and several other friends could have done better and none of them have ever been paid to interpret...
I am firmly in the anti-Bloom camp but I’ve liked this signing since the day it was announced and nothing I’ve read since has changed my opinion.
If some ESPN writer’s opinion was worth shit they’d be working in a front office somewhere. As for the anonymous front office sources, teams don’t align on player evaluations all the time. How many of the guys in the McDaniel story had even seen Yoshida themselves? I’m more swayed by the fact that the Dodgers were a finalist, and they are an elite international scouting FO.
When it comes to foreign guys, what the Sox did is the only way to play it. You trust your own scouts and evaluations.
If some ESPN writer’s opinion was worth shit they’d be working in a front office somewhere. As for the anonymous front office sources, teams don’t align on player evaluations all the time. How many of the guys in the McDaniel story had even seen Yoshida themselves? I’m more swayed by the fact that the Dodgers were a finalist, and they are an elite international scouting FO.
When it comes to foreign guys, what the Sox did is the only way to play it. You trust your own scouts and evaluations.
The athletic has a really good story on the sox pursuit of Yoshida. Here is a sample
https://theathletic.com/4029222/2022/12/24/red-sox-pursuit-masataka-yoshida/
I read the Athletic article too. One former MLBer likens him to Juan Soto. One Sox front office member likened him to Kyle Schwarber. They are really sold on his hitting approach and likelihood of it translating to the MLB. The article implied they see something in his defensive approach to improve him there. If Yoshida-san puts up a 280/360/450 with passable LF defense and WARs in the 3-5 range over his five years, I'd be happy with that for $18M/yr.
They had trouble seeing his defensive play in LF from where the scouting seats were, so they joked that they should get on the Ferris Wheel overlooking LF to try to see him better. One of them did and they actually got lucky with the timing as it coincided with him making a difficult play in the LF corner.
It is a promising story for Sox fans, this was the part I found entertaining:
"The slight slugger, who’d won the league’s batting title in 2020 and 2021, while leading in OPS the last two seasons, leaned into his impressive numbers with some cheeky promotional videos for the Buffaloes. He endeared himself to fans by using The Village People’s “Macho Man” as his walk-up music at home games. A hype video played on the Buffaloes’ jumbotron showed Yoshida pumping inflatable dumbbells, a prop that quickly became available for fans to purchase at the Buffaloes’ team store."
"The slight slugger, who’d won the league’s batting title in 2020 and 2021, while leading in OPS the last two seasons, leaned into his impressive numbers with some cheeky promotional videos for the Buffaloes. He endeared himself to fans by using The Village People’s “Macho Man” as his walk-up music at home games. A hype video played on the Buffaloes’ jumbotron showed Yoshida pumping inflatable dumbbells, a prop that quickly became available for fans to purchase at the Buffaloes’ team store."
That's pretty good. A guy with that sort of self-deprecating sort of humor could become a fan favorite
That's actually a great story. Seems like a really good personality. I'm looking forward to watching him and rooting for him.
So the Sox have been scouting him for like four years. This is why you take that agenda driven Kiley McDaniel story with a grain of salt. The quotes were probably all from US-based scouts that read a report or two from their international coordinators and watched a little film.
Also they clearly think Yoshida's power will play in MLB:
"Every movement in Yoshida’s swing is subtle, yet explosive. In one of the first in-person at-bats Quattlebaum witnessed, in September, the left-handed batter faced an elevated, 95 mph fastball. Yoshida rocked back slightly onto his left leg. He tilted the head of his bat toward the pitcher, lifted his front foot a couple inches off the ground, planted, and then sliced his bat through the zone, pummeling the pitch. It landed an estimated 480 feet away.
Quattlebaum did his best to stifle his surprise at the raw power display while sitting among other MLB scouting directors.
“It started with batting practice, then we saw it in a game and it was just not what I was expecting. He’s a little guy, we always loved the approach. I just wasn’t expecting that kind of raw power,” Quattlebaum said of the 5-foot-8, 175-pound Yoshida.
“There was a discrepancy in the industry and what people think of the power, that was the thing that stood out to us,” Quattlebaum added. “Couple that with the swing-take decisions, it’s not slash-and-dash, hit the ball on the ground and beat it out. It’s more of Western swing with the ability to lift the ball and with surprising raw power. It changed the calculus for us as evaluators.”
Also they clearly think Yoshida's power will play in MLB:
"Every movement in Yoshida’s swing is subtle, yet explosive. In one of the first in-person at-bats Quattlebaum witnessed, in September, the left-handed batter faced an elevated, 95 mph fastball. Yoshida rocked back slightly onto his left leg. He tilted the head of his bat toward the pitcher, lifted his front foot a couple inches off the ground, planted, and then sliced his bat through the zone, pummeling the pitch. It landed an estimated 480 feet away.
Quattlebaum did his best to stifle his surprise at the raw power display while sitting among other MLB scouting directors.
“It started with batting practice, then we saw it in a game and it was just not what I was expecting. He’s a little guy, we always loved the approach. I just wasn’t expecting that kind of raw power,” Quattlebaum said of the 5-foot-8, 175-pound Yoshida.
“There was a discrepancy in the industry and what people think of the power, that was the thing that stood out to us,” Quattlebaum added. “Couple that with the swing-take decisions, it’s not slash-and-dash, hit the ball on the ground and beat it out. It’s more of Western swing with the ability to lift the ball and with surprising raw power. It changed the calculus for us as evaluators.”
It's a good piece and I think there's a lot to be excited about. His signing was unfortunately overshadowed pretty quickly. This graph was interesting (mostly for the non-Schwarber stuff):
*I'm not sure what stats McCaffrey is looking at here. Fangraphs has the Red Sox team chase rate at 33.6 percent, which was eleventh-highest in the majors in 2022. But the point remains.
The Ichiro comp is nice, but it can't help but feel hyperbolic to me. The comps that seem applicable and intriguing to me are Luis Arraez, Steven Kwan and Yandy Diaz. None of those guys hit more than 9 home runs last year, but each was still very valuable when the league as a whole hits .243/.312/.395.
Whiffs are way up. Through advancements of arm strength and pitch development technologies, sticky stuff, increased global scouting for high velocity pitchers and whatever else, they're not going away. The league average spin rate is 100 (fastballs, changeups) to 300 (curveballs, sliders) RPMs higher than it was in 2015. In a sense, it doesn't matter how hard you hit the ball if you can't make contact, and it's harder to make contact than ever.
American League swinging strike % and chase rate %:
to control for pitchers PAs
2013: 9.2 | 29.9
2014: 9.1 | 30.1
2015: 9.6 | 30.5
2016: 10.1 | 30.7
2017: 10.5 | 30.0
2018: 10.6 | 31.1
2019: 11.1 | 31.2
2020: 11.4 | 30.6
2021: 11.3 | 31.8
2022: 11.3 | 33.1
That's really a steady climb. In today's environment, this kind of low-power, good plate discipline, high-contact hitter is more valuable. Steven Kwan's .298/.373/.400 in 2022 is good for a 124 wRC+. Dustin Pedroia's .301/.372/.415 line in 2013 was worth a 115 wRC+. Joe Mauer hit .327/.402/.469 in 2009, a nine-home run season good for a 135 wRC+. Yandy Diaz also popped nine home runs last year en route to his .296/.401/.423 line, worse on paper than Mauer's, but nonetheless good for a 146 wRC+.
So it'll be interesting to see where Yoshida falls. nvalvo was hyped on him early in the offseason and I kind of dismissed Yoshida for being too small to make an impact. I do think it's fair to question how the power translates, but there's a clear path to productivity in today's game, simply by being able to resist chasing these increasingly ridiculous pitches.
Here's another comp: Alejandro Kirk. Kirk is even smaller than Yoshida at 5'8", but his terrific plate discipline and solid barrel rates make him very valuable even as a DH. It seems like Yoshida could have a bit more of a power swing than Kwan or Arraez, who tend to slash at the ball, and I think he hits fewer grounders than Diaz or Kirk (who both have GB rates of roughly 50%), who are slow and very slow, respectively. If Yoshida put up Kirk's 2022 line of .285/.372/.415, it would be in the bottom-half of his ZIPS projection, but it would still be really really good.
*I'm not sure what stats McCaffrey is looking at here. Fangraphs has the Red Sox team chase rate at 33.6 percent, which was eleventh-highest in the majors in 2022. But the point remains.
The Ichiro comp is nice, but it can't help but feel hyperbolic to me. The comps that seem applicable and intriguing to me are Luis Arraez, Steven Kwan and Yandy Diaz. None of those guys hit more than 9 home runs last year, but each was still very valuable when the league as a whole hits .243/.312/.395.
Whiffs are way up. Through advancements of arm strength and pitch development technologies, sticky stuff, increased global scouting for high velocity pitchers and whatever else, they're not going away. The league average spin rate is 100 (fastballs, changeups) to 300 (curveballs, sliders) RPMs higher than it was in 2015. In a sense, it doesn't matter how hard you hit the ball if you can't make contact, and it's harder to make contact than ever.
American League swinging strike % and chase rate %:
to control for pitchers PAs
2013: 9.2 | 29.9
2014: 9.1 | 30.1
2015: 9.6 | 30.5
2016: 10.1 | 30.7
2017: 10.5 | 30.0
2018: 10.6 | 31.1
2019: 11.1 | 31.2
2020: 11.4 | 30.6
2021: 11.3 | 31.8
2022: 11.3 | 33.1
That's really a steady climb. In today's environment, this kind of low-power, good plate discipline, high-contact hitter is more valuable. Steven Kwan's .298/.373/.400 in 2022 is good for a 124 wRC+. Dustin Pedroia's .301/.372/.415 line in 2013 was worth a 115 wRC+. Joe Mauer hit .327/.402/.469 in 2009, a nine-home run season good for a 135 wRC+. Yandy Diaz also popped nine home runs last year en route to his .296/.401/.423 line, worse on paper than Mauer's, but nonetheless good for a 146 wRC+.
So it'll be interesting to see where Yoshida falls. nvalvo was hyped on him early in the offseason and I kind of dismissed Yoshida for being too small to make an impact. I do think it's fair to question how the power translates, but there's a clear path to productivity in today's game, simply by being able to resist chasing these increasingly ridiculous pitches.
Here's another comp: Alejandro Kirk. Kirk is even smaller than Yoshida at 5'8", but his terrific plate discipline and solid barrel rates make him very valuable even as a DH. It seems like Yoshida could have a bit more of a power swing than Kwan or Arraez, who tend to slash at the ball, and I think he hits fewer grounders than Diaz or Kirk (who both have GB rates of roughly 50%), who are slow and very slow, respectively. If Yoshida put up Kirk's 2022 line of .285/.372/.415, it would be in the bottom-half of his ZIPS projection, but it would still be really really good.
I think it’s very likely that “competitive at bats” and “swinging at strikes” was one of the off season highest priorities.
Yoshida, Turner, and Casas should give them 3 guys who kinda refuse to swing out of the zone. If they can add some length with an OF/2B I’m actually fairly bullish on the lineup.
The caveat of adding another bat isn’t a small one.
Teams were unable to contact him prior to the posting date, and the Sox obviously struck quickly to get the jump on other suitors, so not surprising that asking 'Can you hit leadoff?' wasn't a priority.
Respectfully, that doesn’t make sense. They had the highest offer, I’m sure they could’ve eked out a few minutes for a brief conversation.
No one knows how this is going to go and I trust the Sox did the work…but what exactly was McDaniel’s agenda? Do you think he set out to write a negative piece on the Sox?
Isn’t it more likely he was relaying the info he received from other teams? Those teams could very well look like complete fools
Following up on these. I only just this morning watched the full introductory press conference and yes the translator was quite bad. I don't bring it up to take a dig at him but as @A Bad Man notes, the tone was lost, some parts were translated too literally, some parts not at all, and people here and in the media are reacting to those mistranslations. Which is natural of course but, case in point:
Yoshida's answer to the question about batting leadoff, starting at 22:15 in this video is much closer in nuance to a Bull Durham-esque "I'm just happy to be here helping out the team in any way I can" than it is to "I'm not confident in my ability to hit leadoff," even if the latter is closer to what he said literally in previous comments.
The questioner references some comments Yoshida made on insta live about hitting leadoff being quite difficult, and Yoshida says, あまり「一番」と言うのは経験ないので、そういうことを言うったのですが、 本当に任されたポジションで、自分の役割というか、今まで日本でやって来たのように強くボールをコンタクトして、ことは変わりないのかな、どの打順でも、と思っています。
It's a humble, "Well I don't really have any experience batting leadoff which is why I said that, but it's an important and entrusted spot and in terms of my role, I don't think there'll be any change to what I've done in Japan which is just try to make solid contact, regardless of the spot in the lineup."
It doesn't mean Yoshida wants to hit leadoff necessarily, but it's also not any kind of source of controversy, imho.
Yoshida has spent the past couple years developing a MLB-ready swing and probably thinks hitting leadoff would mean ditching that in favor of a scrappy, contact-oriented style. Once he realizes that players in America don’t change their approach anymore based on where they hit in the lineup, I expect he’ll be fine batting 1st if that’s what’s best for the team.
The WBC runs from March 8 to 21. The pools he'll be in are in Japan from the 8th to the 16th. He'll probably need to be in Japan at least a few days before the 8th, so he should show up to Ft. Meyers right when pitchers and catchers report on 2/15. That would give him 2-3 weeks with the team before leaving.
If Japan makes the finals, the earliest he'll be back in camp is the 22nd, which only gives 7 spring training games against MLB pitching. Of course the best WBC teams he'll face in the last couple of rounds are made up of some of the top players in the world, so it's not like he's facing a pitching machine for the time he's away from the team.
If Japan makes the finals, the earliest he'll be back in camp is the 22nd, which only gives 7 spring training games against MLB pitching. Of course the best WBC teams he'll face in the last couple of rounds are made up of some of the top players in the world, so it's not like he's facing a pitching machine for the time he's away from the team.
I've been trying to spend more time doing actual analysis on things than talking out of my butt lately, since I've retired from the military and am currently on winter break from school, and I think data analysis of some sort is what I want to do with my life once I graduate.
I've been working on a spreadsheet dealing with league wide batter projections for 2023, which has been a lot of fun, but I've been focused on Yoshida this morning because coming up with any kind of projection for him is hard, especially since he was such an outlier in his league that it's really difficult to say "The Japanese Pacific League had this K rate and MLB had this K rate, so let's just regress it similarly". What I decided to do was increase his K rate and decrease his walk rate pretty drastically, while also regressing his BABIP all the way to MLB average, which was nearly a 40 point drop.
What I ended up with for a 600 PA size was: .275/.366/.430/.796, with 31 doubles and 16 home runs. That said, those numbers are probably a little aggressive, BUT the JPPL has a really low home run rate compared to MLB, so I wouldn't be surprised if the front office thinks his power will play up some over here.
Needless to say, if he comes close to those numbers I think most of us would be pretty happy with his addition to the team.
I've been working on a spreadsheet dealing with league wide batter projections for 2023, which has been a lot of fun, but I've been focused on Yoshida this morning because coming up with any kind of projection for him is hard, especially since he was such an outlier in his league that it's really difficult to say "The Japanese Pacific League had this K rate and MLB had this K rate, so let's just regress it similarly". What I decided to do was increase his K rate and decrease his walk rate pretty drastically, while also regressing his BABIP all the way to MLB average, which was nearly a 40 point drop.
What I ended up with for a 600 PA size was: .275/.366/.430/.796, with 31 doubles and 16 home runs. That said, those numbers are probably a little aggressive, BUT the JPPL has a really low home run rate compared to MLB, so I wouldn't be surprised if the front office thinks his power will play up some over here.
Needless to say, if he comes close to those numbers I think most of us would be pretty happy with his addition to the team.
This is cool, and I would gladly take a .366 OBP bat, even with the lower SLG, as it looks like this team is going to have to be overall less reliant on HRs and more on grinding pitching staffs down by getting on base and pushing runs across without the long ball.
Is what you were doing also taking into account some of the stadium size stuff? I can’t recall where, but I thought one of the great posts from someone who follows the Japanese leagues (maybe @TokyoSox?) mentioned a lot of those stadia are cavernous, which may suppress HR power.
Is what you were doing also taking into account some of the stadium size stuff? I can’t recall where, but I thought one of the great posts from someone who follows the Japanese leagues (maybe @TokyoSox?) mentioned a lot of those stadia are cavernous, which may suppress HR power.
I am not accounting for stadium size, as that's beyond the scope of my capabilities at the moment (just trying to get a little better each day). He was well above JPPL average for home runs per balls in play (I don't use FB/GB splits but anything that isn't a K, BB, or Sac Bunt), but the manual regression I plugged in puts him well below MLB average. If his bat to ball skills translate AND he's has MLB average or better power, he could be a special hitter. I'm not quite willing to go that far, though.
