As the Boston Red Sox scramble to find some offensive spark late in the season, it’s difficult to ignore the ongoing struggles of one of their highest-paid hitters.
Masataka Yoshida’s MLB journey has fallen short of expectations, with each of his first three seasons proving more underwhelming than the last. After sitting out the first three months of this year while recovering slowly from labrum surgery, Yoshida has returned as one of the team’s least effective bats.
Boston also has Yoshida under control for two more seasons, thanks to the five-year, $90 million albatross contract he signed under the watch of former chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom. With the offseason fast approaching, it’s safe to say the 32-year-old’s future with the Red Sox is in doubt.
Baseball analyst Robbie Hyde make an revelation about Masataka Yoshida’s future. Hyde expects that Yoshida will either be traded or designated for assignment this offseason, with the Red Sox likely absorbing most, if not all, of the \$18.67 million he’s owed annually over the next two years.
“While he did show some good things early on, he ran into some injuries, and the numbers have been way down this year, only hitting .227, a .279 on-base, a .326 on the slugging, a 64 wrC+, a negative-0.5 fWAR,” Hyde said, rattling off some of Yoshida’s lowlights.
“I just don’t see the Red Sox keeping him around. I think they’re gonna do everything they can to trade him, or in the end, they just DFA him.”
Eating more than \$37 million in dead money is a tough pill to swallow, but so is justifying playing time for a player with limited tools if he’s not producing offensively.
During Yoshida’s first season in Boston, when he carried an OPS around .800, his lack of athleticism was easier to overlook. But with the Red Sox facing a logjam of position players heading into the offseason, it’s hard to imagine that leniency continuing.
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