Masataka Yoshida is set to undergo an MRI on his right shoulder, manager Alex Cora told reporters (including MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo) after today’s game. Earlier today, Carlos Yamazaki of Tokyo Sports reported (via X) that Yoshida was considering having surgery, as Yoshida said he has been bothered by shoulder soreness for much of the season.
The 31-year-old Yoshida didn’t play in Boston’s season-ending 3-1 win over the Rays today, thus ending his second MLB season with a .280/.349/.415 slash line and 10 home runs over 421 plate appearances. That translates to a 115 wRC+ in 2024, and after he had relatively similar numbers in 580 PA in 2023, Yoshida now has a 112 wRC+ over his 248 games and 1001 trips to the plate as a big leaguer.
Between these solid numbers and the fact that he is one of the league’s toughest players to strike out, Yoshida’s first two Major League seasons have been quite respectable overall. However, more than “respectable” was expected when the Sox signed him to a five-year, $90MM deal during the 2022-23 offseason. Seen as an overpay of a contract from former Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, Yoshida seemed to answer his critics with some very strong numbers in 2023 before fading down the stretch.
His 2024 was limited in another sense, as Yoshida was almost exclusively a designated hitter. While Cora reiterated today that Yoshida’s usage was more due to Boston’s outfield surplus than due to concerns about Yoshida’s defense, the fact remains that Yoshida played in just one game as an outfielder this season. The left-handed hitting Yoshida was also largely used only against right-handed pitching, further limiting his playing time.
More will be known about Yoshida’s shoulder once the MRI is complete, but if surgery is necessary, that further complicates his status heading into 2025. With three years and $54MM remaining on his contract, Yoshida is a tough player to move in any trade talks, and his trade value will dip further if any health uncertainty is attached. Some room in Boston’s outfield could open up if Tyler O’Neill departs in free agency, but two star Red Sox outfield prospects (Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell) are expected to be part of the big league roster at some point in 2025, further crowding the picture.
There’s also a chance O’Neill is re-signed, as he told WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford and other reporters that he spoke with chief baseball officer Craig Breslow today, and the two both expressed “mutual interest” in a reunion. Breslow also spoke publicly earlier this week about the club’s keenness in possibly bringing the Canadian slugger back for 2025 and beyond.
Injuries have continued to plague O’Neill, as he was limited to 113 games and 473 PA this season due to three relatively brief stints on the 10-day IL. The good news is that when O’Neill was able to play, he delivered to the tune of 31 homers and a .241/.336/.511 slash line, and a 131 wRC+. O’Neill had an elite barrel rate and excellent walk and hard-hit ball rates, even if he also posted one of the baseball’s worst strikeout rates (33.6%). The right-handed hitting O’Neill also had some drastic splits, as he had only a .693 OPS in 317 PA against righty pitching but a whopping 1.180 OPS in 156 PA against southpaws.
The splits are perhaps less of an issue for the Red Sox than other teams, as having a powerful right-handed bat is particularly helpful on a Sox roster that is overloaded with lefty swingers. That said, Boston’s future outfield prospects perhaps cloud the chances of O’Neill’s return, and his injury history does add an extra element of risk for the Sox or any team that signs him to a multi-year contract. It’s not out of the question that O’Neill could accept a one-year qualifying offer to take a $21MM-ish payday and stay in Boston in 2025, but there seems to be a greater chance that O’Neill would reject a QO and seek a heftier contract on the heels of his strong season.
Finally, today’s game marked the final broadcast for longtime radio broadcaster Joe Castiglione, who is retiring from regular announcing duty after 42 years of calling Red Sox games. He was recognized by the Hall of Fame as this year’s winner of the Ford Frick Award, and several Sox legends took part in a pregame ceremony today honoring Castiglione’s tenure as the voice of Red Sox Nation. We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Castiglione on his incredible career.
Very good writeup Mark, and congrats to Joe once again on his retirement. He was the perfect announcer, wasn’t too much of a homer and waited before calling fly balls homeruns and his tremendous memory was great in mixing in fantastic stories and references. I will truly miss him.
Congrats on a great sportscasting career! I vividly remember Joe calling Cavs and Indians games as well as his time at WKYC.
O’Neill is a Boras client. So, I doubt he will be back.
Careful! You’re apt to trigger the Boras apologists with comments like that. We’re supposed to ignore the fact that most of his clients get overpaid to underperform, but you didn’t hear that from me 😉
Not sure why this was lumped together and put out as a new story with comments six days old. As for O’Neil, it all hinges on cost. Yes, he hit home runs but most were solo shots and he strikes out way too much given the rest of the lineup. The Sox built their past success on not only working the count to get the starter out early but also by then getting hits/walks to keep innings alive and knocking runners in. This line up was way too much of “swing and a miss, strike three”. Next year needs to be built on defense, pitching and those who can keep the line going. Bill Mueller in 2003 won a batting title hitting at the bottom of the order. Sure, all teams strike out but you can’t expect to win with double-digit ks most nights.
My bad. I was looking at the Sox feed, not the MLB feed. Obviously, a .500 team doesn’t deserve stories during the playoffs…
Thanks for everything Joe! Enjoy your retirement!
If Yoshida made 5M I’d love him. It’s very possible he could be a 300 hitter with a plus .800 OPS.. He takes a HBP as much as he can, he rarely strikes out, and he’s just a smart hitter.
Sadly, he does not make 5M.
He definitely has the bat skills to put together some very good years, but with all the guys they have coming up, they don’t need a regular DH at all, let alone one making 18M.
Even at half his current contract he has value. But that’s what the Sox would realistically have to consider to move him, eating half the remaining money on his deal. That still would be worth it to clear the roster spot.
“Be worth it”…Well stated. Signing an $18M/yr 10 HR DH with virtually no defensive value to a long term deal is a serious misstep.
And I agree that it’d be “worth it” to do whatever it takes to move him to a different team. Addition by subtraction is sometimes the very best way to go.
Yep. Its sunk costs. No need to compound the initial mistake by keeping him on the roster when that spot is better served going to someone else. Anything they can get another team to cover of the $18M per year would be a bonus. And the team has enough young players making very little to swing having a chunk of money for essentially nothing.
Exactly where my head is at going into the off-season. Shoring up the porous and inconsistent infield defense has to be a priority going forward, and that means getting Raffy off third, at least on a part-time basis, but ideally, permanently. Getting Raffy more rest could only help him elevate his offensive numbers to the next level, too.
Devers isn’t the cause of the poor IF defense. He’s never going to have the range to have great DRS numbers but he did cut his error total to the lowest of his career in 2024. He’s actually gotten noticeably better at 3B and none of the potential replacement options there are stand out defenders either.
The biggest part of my issue with the ‘pay to get rid of Yoshi’ crowd is that we still need a 3B. I’d have welcomed the move last year, when Chapman was available. But now it feels like any savings would be eaten up by replacing Devers at 3B.
JB:
Mayer is the future Red Sox third baseman.
Hopefully by June:
Campbell 2B
Story SS
Mayer 3B
As a fall back on infielders, you still have Medrioth, Grissom, Sogard, Hamilton, Gonzalez, Raphaela and lastly put Devers back at 3B.
At least Hamilton is likely gone. It will cost to get and his value will never be higher.
I doubt Hamilton has much value on the trade market.
Better to keep his speed as your utility middle infielder/pinch runner, than to get a similarly fringe player in return.
Devers’ fielding percentage is 4 points lower than his peak number of .964. He’s under league average all 8 seasons and bad score keeping explains why his error total was lower than usual along with his much lower Total Chances.
He’s not improved over time, he’s just gotten more breaks from score keepers. Total his misplays each of the last three years and you’ll find it is roughly 150. That is a huge number of base runners on balls normally handled by 3Bs in the league.
I think Trollfree has pointed out how bad he is for years and that’s good enough for me. The data supports his comments. Devers is legitimately the worst 3B in baseball according to both the total errors in his career and his fielding percentage for playing with 4 or more seasons at 3B.
Devers is the problem and has been since 2017 when it comes to defense. 150 balls not handled in 3 years is more than any pitching staff can make up for.
The money is spent. It was an overpay, but that’s water under the bridge now. My biggest issue with Yoshida is that he blocks the DH position, with a bat that is merely “good” rather than “elite”.
Not sure if O’Neill can best the QO in AAV for the season but a team with a lot of DH AB’s to give might be a better option than staying in Boston unfortunately
Rsox – He’s projected to land a $36M/3yr contract.
Zero chance he comes anywhere close to $20M AAV on a multi year contract.
Probably true, which is one reason to accept the QO they will almost assuredly give him. The flip side is given his injury history he may want the security of a multi-year guarantee, which I’m not sure the Red Sox offer unless they move one of Yoshida/Duran/Abreu first
Rsox – Well this injury to Yoshida probably prevents him from being traded this offseason. It’s really unfortunate he hasn’t been able to stay healthy these couple years. Considering how well he hit since his wrist healed, even despite the shoulder pain, it seems like he could easily be a .320 BA/.900 OPS guy if he could ever stay healthy.
I really think Tyler will sign a 2-year deal with some other team, that also includes an opt-out after year one. I’m not sure the Sox would risk $21M QO, even though Boras would likely convince Tyler to reject it. With his injury history, enormous strikeout rate, poor defense and inability to hit RHP, he won’t be as attractive a free agent as some think.
Easily be a .900 OPS guy?! lol
Jb – .894 OPS for 3 1/2 months last year.
fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=dh&sta…
If I get to pick the right quarter of his career, I could make even Wong look good!
It is the other three quarters that is the concern.
tff – If Yoshida continues to be injury prone, it’s a valid reason to dump him. I hate to give up on a player just because of injuries.
Wong wasn’t injured when he batted .234/.271/.380 over the last couple months of the season.
And how do you get a quarter out of 3 1/2 months?? LOL!!
3 months is a quarter of a two year career, right?
I’m not convinced you can blame it all on injury. I realize he has been more or less continuously injured, aside from the first few months, but that isn’t necessarily the reason he has struggled. And his defense was bad from the very start.
tff – We were talking about last year, not both years! LOL!
if you want to include this year, then add another 3 months of batting .303 with a .370 OBP and .828 OPS. So it’s fair to say he’s been very productive a little more than half his MLB career, being limited due to several injuries and his getting worn out at the end of last year which I believe had a lot to do with the decision to not play him in the outfield this year.
What about his hitting don’t you like?
I have no opinion on his defense. He came here with a reputation of being less than average defensively, similar to Manny, but he didn’t have a reputation of being horrible.
If he ever puts up the full season numbers that were expected of him, which he has shown he’s capable of doing, he would come close to earning his contract. But I understand that’s a big if because perhaps MLB is too physically challenging for him.
He showed in 2023 that his defense is worse than Manny’s,.. By MLB standards, DH is his only position.
I tend to be skeptical of pretty much all players in their 30s, as the physicality of the game catches up to you around then. He doesn’t seem to be aging any differently than most, with flashes where he looks like a younger man interspersed with long periods in which he looks very tired.
I think it is unlikely that he will earn more than half his contract at this point.
tff – I agree with your views on age, but it’s important to not paint all players with the same broad brush.
Time will tell, but yeah there’s no guarantee he can stay healthy longterm.
Sure, some age well while most don’t. But I see no evidence that Yoshida is likely to age better than average.
Typical LT deal is buying at least two years that the player is not expected to be productive.
tff – Agreed! As I mentioned earlier, Yoshida simply may not be able to withstand the physical demands associated with playing in MLB.
Only 9 players were .900 OPS this year, and everyone of those had at least 30 homers. My point, power gives OPS a nice boost and Yoshida doesnt have anywhere near the power to join that club for an entire season.
That 3 month stretch that Fever cites was supported by a .348 BABIP. While that might not be ridiculous for a more athletic player, Yoshida has averaged closer to .310 over his career. So it took a lot of luck for him to approach that .900 OPS.
I agree with Fever that he needs a .380+ wOBA to be a valuable player, given his poor baserunning and defense.
Salvi – Batting average gives a huge boost since it’s counted twice in OPS. He needs to put up an average like he did in Japan to come close to a .900 OPS.
Saga: Did I say BA does give a boost?
1) Homeruns count the same as four singles in OPS, so power has its own bonus. You usually need both to sustain a .900 OPS in the major leagues. Im not saying it cant be done, but doing it “easily” without power? No.
2) Japan is irrelavant. Players put up crazy numbers, and some of them are .200 hitters in America.
3) Is it “come close to ,900 OPS” or “easily hit .900”, like FPG said? Seems like youre graying what was said, for whatever reason.
I thought that was his point? To manage a .900 OPS, Yoshida would need to run a .325 BA. Doing that in Japan isn’t the same as doing that in the majors, so that .900 OPS is unlikely.
tff – Where did you find BABIP for his years with Orix? I’d be curious to see the numbers.
Sag – We are talking about Yoshida, whose plate discipline is one of the best in the game. He doesn’t need to hit .327 in order to get a .900 OPS in MLB, as long as he has an OBP similar to his .421 over 7 seasons in NPB.
Actually, not even that high an OBP.
He went into the May 3rd, 2023 game with a .902 OPS …. his BA was only .298 and his OBP was only .391
So your notion that he has to put up a .327 BA to have at least a .900 OPS is absurd.
tff – Please see my reply to Sag.
His .327 BA in NPB got him a .960 OPS, not a .900 OPS.
Yes MLB pitchers are better than Japanese pitchers, but plate discipline carries over to MLB a lot better than BA or SLG.
You can see his NPB numbers on Baseball Reference.
He isn’t coming close to the BB rate he put up there, or the SLG, and as you say he isn’t likely to sustain a .325 BA in the majors. All of that makes a .900 OPS unlikely.
Tff – But I was asking where you found his BABIP for Japan, it’s definitely not on BR.
Which isn’t surprising because analytics isn’t much of a thing in Japan baseball.
Did I say anything about his BABIP in Japan? I wouldn’t have any context for that number.
He has enough of a baseline in the States that I believe it should be indicative of his ability.
tff:
I dont have my BABIP, but I did bat .667 in Little League. Can you give me an indication of how that translates to MLB?
tff – Here’s the quote from you, I was just wondering how you came up with a career .310 BABIP. Not a big deal though, maybe you meant to write BA?
“That 3 month stretch that Fever cites was supported by a .348 BABIP. While that might not be ridiculous for a more athletic player, Yoshida has averaged closer to .310 over his career. “
Not well, I’m afraid. Don’t quit your day job!
Ah, I was focused on his ML career. Like I said above, I see that as most relevant at this point.
tff – This is that time of year where it gets kinda boring when our team is no longer playing, gotta wait at least a month before stuff starts happening.
Looking forward to the Netflix ’04 doc coming up though.
His BABIP with the NPB comes to .327.
(H – HR) / (AB – HR – K + SF)
My guess is that ML defenses tend to be stronger, which explains why his MLB BABIP is .310.
The Sox should offer O’Neill a qualifying offer. I hope he comes back: the RH outfield power bat is a great fit on this team.
O’Neill had 31 HRs (7 multi-HR games), in those 24 games he homered, he had 31 RBIs driving in himself and 13 RBI from men on base. That means of his 61 RBIs for the year only 17 RBIs came in the other 83 games. The result is: Tyler O’Neill did very little offensively the vast majority of his at bats on the year coupled with one of the highest strikeouts rates in the MLB. IMO, I hope Breslow takes a hard pass on Tyler O’Neill.
For $5.5 million in 2024, as a replacement for Verdugo’s at bats, and next to nothing in acquisition cost, he was fine, but not to re-sign!
‘Mutual Interest’ means as much as saying a team is ‘in’ on a particular player….it means nothing…
O’Neill will definitely get a QO.
Is it mutual interest or ‘mutual’ interest?
Second seasons from bargain free agent finds haven’t been too helpful for the Sox. And O’Neil doesn’t need to feel more pressure from prospects edging him out as he experienced in St.Louis. And the Sox will pressure him as they managed Anthony, Campbell, Grissom, Abreu, Duran and Rafaela. Hence why I suspect a small market team with an uncontested corner spot makes more sense.
Glass half full or half empty…not this year as we all got to see a glimpse of the future. Can someone tell me how many days till pitchers and catchers report?? As for Joe C living in Chicago I didn’t get to hear many of his calls but his the “ Boston Redsox are world champions can you believe it” will always be engrained…. Sure beats Harry Carey’s… pooooppped it up calls LOL
olm – It’s not about pitchers & catchers, it’s about Truck Day ;O)
133 Days!!!!
You have to seriously think as long as Devers swings the bat with such violence, he will have shoulder issues. It prolly will only get worse with age.
Bad – What about Casas and his rib cage?
Tatis Jr and Aaron Judge are obviously fine after having shoulder surgery, and Devers is young so I’m not too concerned with him.
At least one of his shoulder injuries was the result of diving for a ball in the field. He is not a natural fielder.
I know this site regards its news focus to be narrowly on MLB rosters and management, but Joe Castiglione deserves more than a paragraph at the end of a multi-topic column. Did Bob Uecker get such a shabby send off from MLB Trade Rumors?
bcjd – Agreed!
And as further proof … when Sterling retired early this season, he got twice as many paragraphs and twice as many sentences as Joe.
mlbtraderumors.com/2024/04/the-opener-montgomery-v…
And Sterling is already back calling regular season and all postseason games for the Yankees!
I hope the Sox don’t sign o’neil. I don’t want them to block the young kids who have no where left to go up to the ML roster. As far a Yoshida goes take what you can get for him and pay whatever it takes. Boston has way to many lefthanded bats anyway, plus 3 of the farm kids are lefties to boot.
Yaz – The problem isn’t they have too many lefthanded hitters (Casas, Abreu, Duran, Devers, Yoshida).
The problem is their righthanded hitters as a group aren’t very good (Wong, Rafaela, Grissom, Story).
So you want to get rid of a good lefthanded hitter just to try and improve the righthanded batting? That’s not logical.
What’s logical would be to get rid of one or two of the bad righthanded hitters and replace them with good righthanded hitters.
The logical approach would be to get rid of the guys who are the greatest defensive liabilities, and replace them with players who contribute in both halves of the inning. The persistent defensive issues are a lot more serious than the L/R balance.
Tff – That would work, but easier said than done. They reiterated during the press conference there’s no plans to move Devers off 3B, and moving Casas has never been discussed. A trade of Yoshida won’t change that, in part because moving either of those two guys would severely devalue them and therefore reduce their potential trade value.
Remember analytics obsessed front offices have never valued defense, that was the Moneyball Athletics’ biggest flaw that led to their downfall.
Nonsense, analytics these days puts a very high premium on defense. And with the Statcast tracking, they finally have the numbers to prove its value. I’m not joking when I say that the Red Sox give up a quarter run per game on defense (with much of that deemed “earned runs” and landing on pitchers’ ERAs).
That’s part of why a player like Yoshida is not considered especially valuable. It isn’t just his walks and OPS, but we can put a hard number on his poor baserunning and dreadful defense. You could make an argument that Yoshida swings a better bat than Abreu, especially taking the platooning into account, but Abreu is more than just his bat. Yoshida is less than his bat.
Do you seriously expect management to share their internal discussions in a press conference?!? You jumped on the “no plans” part, but the meaningful half of the answer was “we would talk about something like that behind closed doors if we were to do such a thing”. It will become a discussion when one of three things happens. Either Devers’ defense becomes so bad that it can’t be ignored, or the Red Sox find a potential candidate to take over at 3B, or they have an opening at DH and start looking at the alternatives to fill it. That is when “no plans” starts being discussed internally. When they actually find a solid answer, that is when it is discussed in press conferences.
tff – Do you not see the irony in your first sentence?
Bloom was hired in large part because of his heavy investment in analytics.
Bloom is the one who massively increased the size of the Red Sox analytics department.
Bloom is the one who viewed analytics as a cost-effective alternative for filling out the roster, with John Henry’s blessing of course.
And guess who signed both Yoshida and Devers to their current contracts?
All front offices these days are heavy into analytics. Bloom has not shown unusual emphasis or understanding of those. His expertise is in development, which is one area where analytics has very limited utility.
In short, I believe you are making it into a bugaboo for everything about the game you don’t like?
tff – All front offices are not into analytics to the same degree, some are far more than others.
Generally the lower payroll teams utilize analytics far more because they can’t afford to pay market rates for talented players. Instead they use analytics to search for undervalued players. And of course cheapskate franchises such as the Red Sox do the same.
After Bloom left, Ortiz was quoted as saying he was happy to know the Red Sox would be moving away from extreme dependence on analytics.
Nah I love statistics, when used properly. I am of the majority who views analytics as an aspect that should be complementary, it shouldn’t be used as the sole reason for making critical decisions. Even well-known analytics supporters such as Theo have said the over-reliance on analytics is a huge mistake.
It’s like some people think there should be only electric cars and think that ICE should be banned, while rational people lean toward hybrid cars.
Maybe I should put it this way — if Bloom was looking at analytics, they were very different analytics than I use. From his results, I’m not sure he was looking at the right ones.
Analytics is just data. Use it well or use it poorly, but data is never to blame. It is a mistake to tar it with such a broad brush.
tff – You keep agreeing with me without even knowing it ;O)
That’s what I’ve been saying all along, many analytics are estimates based on people’s own formulas …. they are not consistent between BR, FG, BP and many other sources. There is no assurance of accuracy that there is with legacy statistics.
And YES one of the biggest problems with analytics is that people don’t value them properly, they don’t use them properly. We see that all the time, like Cora making pitching decisions based purely on L/R matchups which of course is dumb. Every horrible managerial decision is made by a manager who *thought* they were basing the decision on something they shouldn’t have. There’s always a reason, it’s just frequently not a good reason.
I’ll never write about my career experience, but if you only knew you’d be stunned because you seem to think I’m against statistics and nothing could be further from the truth.
I thought my frequent writing about Dan Duquette and Mike Gimbel might have been a clue ;O)
Mike Gimbel was a weird guy. He had some good ideas, but was WAY overconfident in them. For a brief spell had some discussions with him on another baseball forum.
I’m often glad that I’m not in charge. Pondering the way forward, it is clear that the team can really use an ace starter and an ace reliever. No challenge to make room for those two.
Beyond that? I’m not seeing a pressing need to bump one of our other four experienced starters from the rotation, and there is a decently long list of relievers with potential. Especially if Guerrero works out (and he looked really good in September).
Similarly, the offense is in a bit of a bind for the simple reason that their only losses to free agency are O’Neill and Jansen. ONE starter and a backup catcher. Contrast that against four good prospects who are on the verge of the majors, plus a fifth (Meidroth) who is likely ready for a lesser role.
With these impending graduations, you could almost suggest that they have an excess of depth – even if they could still use more stars. That situation recommends trades, and of course that all depends on who might be available and what the ask is for each.
I do hope that they aim high, though. This team needs additional stars more than it needs additional depth. The minor league talent should help a lot with the latter.
tff – Yeah I’m super excited to see the Big Four, especially Anthony and Campbell. It will be nice to have them get lots of playing time in ST, makes the games more enjoyable.
As for Gimbel, so true …. did you know his Brooklyn apartment got raided and several live alligators were found in it.
TFF17 = Your comments accurately sum up the situation going into next year. Strong core of young hitters. Weak fielding. Strong set of young pitchers needing a Sale-like top of the rotation guy. The team needs quality depth and nobody should consider Teel, Anthony or Campbell all-star quality players in 2025. It’s their turn to learn how to make adjustments at the MLB level. Injuries will have a huge say in determining whether the 2025 team will compete for more than the last Wildcard spot. Atlanta was a perfect example of how much injuries can change your team’s potential for that year.