I was going to make the same suggestion. I clicked on this thread half expecting to read that Yoshida had gone back on the IL as a way to recover more fully from his injury. Maybe he could get more AB's in the minors because he doesn't look like the same hitter as he was before July of last year.
It has definitely been that, and I'm glad it has. But now things have shifted a bit. If the team continues to contend, Yoshida is going to have to hit better to still have his job by the end of July.
Unless there's something in his contract, he's an IFA with 1 year's service time - he has 3 options left and is a FA in 2028.
Got it, thx. Hopefully it won't come to that, but good to know it's an option. The more I think about it, it's pretty significant. It means they could get him out of the lineup for this year without completely giving up on the 56 mil his owed 2025-2028.
His K rate is really good, elite even. It's the weak contact he makes that is the issue.
What? He's barely striking out over here. He's among the best at not striking out. Thats been repeatedly covered in this thread. His problem is he doesnt hit the ball hard, and he hits it on the ground.
It's tough to walk when pitchers don't think you can do any damage in the zone. Until he starts hitting gap shots, he'll see a steady diet of strikes. His hard hit rate is down, as are his barrels and exit velocity. It could be that he's still hurt and shaking off rust, but he's got to show pitchers that they have to fear him more.
Was his contact and hard hits % poor from April through July of last year?
Sorry - should have clarified. Is the issue that he's striking out too much compared to what he was doing in the NPB? Because those numbers have increased, too - he's striking out at a 13.7% rate over here compared to 9.4% in Japan (still great, as you've noted, but it has shifted in the wrong direction). Coupled with the dramatic decrease in BB%, he's walking far less, striking out more, and not hitting it well when he does make contact.
Or maybe, his thumb has been hurt for a long time. That would certainly help explain the weak contact.
Definitely a possibility. His results have just been sooooo poor since late summer 2023 compared to his first 4 months.
Sure. I'm not giving up on him. But if he continues to hit poorly, devoting a roster spot to a guy who, in the best of times is seen by the team as only a DH vs RHP, while they are in a battle for the playoffs, is a very real issue that has to be dealt with. Especially when the guy has minor league options.
Totally agree. I suspect we’ll find out soon if this current run we’re on is a legit reflection of how we can compete in the 2nd half, or if it’s just a nice 2 week run.
Yep. Not contending would suck but it would bring the luxury of being free to give Yoshida (and Grissom arguably fits here as well) the rest of the year to figure it out. It helped Jarren Duran. But the equation has now changed, and these decisions have become more difficult. That's why Breslow gets the big $$, I suppose. He's in the lineup tonight, hopefully he goes 3 for 5 with two doubles and it's the start of a turnaround!
I'll buy the rehab assignment might not have been long enough to work out the kinks or find his timing after the IL stint. By the same token though, he's had less than 40 PAs (37 to be exact) since returning to the club. That's hardly enough to determine anything. In fact, in his brief history with the team, he's been a slow starter overall and tends to find his way eventually.
It’s interesting in that Gausman’s repertoire is akin to that of a typical Japanese pitcher, with his reliance on the four seam/splitter pairing.
I just can’t imagine his BA staying anywhere close to .321! I don’t know how to isolate his BABiP during that same stretch but the batting average drops to a reasonable level and the OBP and SLG drop in a relative ratio and he’s likely around a .750 OPS. Still not anything close to an $18M DH.
Playing DH, where in 2024 MLB is hitting .243/.321/.417 - I actually expected that to be higher. Wow.
Yoshida’s BABIP over his last 15 games is .410. For comparison, Jarren Duran— a much faster runner that is not nicknamed Sgt. Pepper by opposing second basemen— has a BABIP of .239 over his last 15 games. 15 games of BABIP barely rises above complete randomness. Unless Pittsburgh changes their team name to the Pyrites, Yoshida’s unsubsidized contract remains untradeable. And as long as the Boston’s lineup frequently includes the likes of Romy Gonzalez, Rob Refsnyder, and Jamie Westbrook, it makes little sense for a competitive Red Sox team to subsidize Yoshida’s contract.
The power is the key. He's not going to be Aaron Judge, but .450 SLG Yoshida is a decent player.
I'm old enough to remember pepper. Grounders to second, etc.
I'm glad he's hitting better, but his apparent unplayable-ness in the field is always going to make for a weird fit unless he hits at a pretty high level. HIs .373 July BABIP is probably not sustainable.
The big thing for me is that with the injuries there is just not a big enough sample size to say whether he is figuring things out, or if he is just showing the sort of hot and cold streaks you normally see from an average or even below average hitter. We know he fields like he's got a piano on his back, so you have to be pretty certain he's actually a well above average hitter to keep him on the roster. Right now he's a sunk cost and it will cost us a lot to trade him, so they should definitely let him DH for the rest of the year to figure out who he is if he continues to hit decently well.
