Alex Cora Hopes Masataka Yoshida Will Play Outfield for the Red Sox in 2025

Over the past three days, Red Sox fans have been bombarded with quotes from players, coaches, and executives at Saturday’s Fenway Fest. This is a Red Sox team with a lot to talk about, and we’ll be covering some of the more interesting takeaways from the event. Our first subject is Masataka Yoshida, about whom Colin McCarthy of Boston.com and Chris Cotillo of MassLive reported several quotes. We should start by letting him speak for himself, and understandably, he discussed the trade rumors that have been swirling throughout the offseason. “I kind of kept (the rumors) muted so I wasn’t really paying attention,” Yoshida said, through interpreter Yutaro Yamaguchi. “I did pay attention to those but it’s out of my control so we’ll see what happens.”

We shouldn’t underestimate how difficult it is to be a major league ballplayer while surrounded by trade speculation, let alone doing so in your second season in a new country and while battling through a shoulder injury would require offseason surgery. Manager Alex Cora also addressed Yoshida’s position on the roster, telling reporters that the Red Sox wanted him in the outfield: “Yeah, our outfield defense was great last year, but in a perfect world, if he was healthy, he was going to play the outfield. The throwing part of it wasn’t there so that’s the reason he actually didn’t play. Hopefully, we can get him there and we can use him in the outfield, too.”

Cora continued:

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“It would be great for the roster, to be honest with you. He’s a good hitter. When he’s healthy, he’s one of the best left-handed hitters in the league. I think the whole shoulder thing, if you look at the numbers, whenever he wasn’t feeling great, there were a lot of ground balls and a lot of quick outs. The outcome was early because he didn’t feel comfortable doing it. We still believe in the hitter. We still believe he can hit the ball in the air. When healthy, he can help us. If he can play in the outfield, that would be great for our roster.”

There are two main things to unpack here. First, as we know, Yoshida’s thumb and shoulder injuries were serious, and they likely affected him at the plate. According to every measure of contact quality, Yoshida hit the ball harder in 2023 than he did in 2024. It’s no stretch to pin at least some of that on the injury.

The second claim, that the Red Sox want Yoshida to play the outfield, is a stretch at best. Yoshida played just one emergency inning in the field in 2024, and even before the injury became public knowledge, there was a pretty simple explanation. During his healthy 2023 season, Yoshida graded out as one of the worst fielders in the game. Although he played left for just under half a season in 2023, Statcast had his fielding costing the Red Sox 12 runs, fifth-most in all of baseball. According to Defensive Runs Saved, Yoshida cost the Red Sox four runs, which is very bad, but not necessarily catastrophic. I will refrain from putting together a blooper reel, but suffice it to say that eye test wasn’t kind either. With a sprint speed of 26.1 feet per second, Yoshida is one of the slower players in baseball. According to Statcast, he averaged the seventh-slowest jump among all outfielders in 2023. He really struggled with balls hit near the base of the green monster, and baserunners felt extremely confident running on his arm. According to Statcast, the gap between his advance rate and his expected advance rate was tied for the highest rate in the league. That pretty much covers every aspect of being an outfielder.

Fenway has a unique outfield, and maybe a healthy, more experienced Yoshida would have been better out there in 2024, but the idea that the roster is better with him in the field is laughable. First, in Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Wilyer Abreu, the Red Sox boast three of the best young outfield defenders in baseball. Second, even if Yoshida were to slide into the outfield, there’s no right-handed bat to take over the designated hitter spot.

There’s no way to know how much Alex Cora believes what he told reporters. Unfortunately, the most cynical take is also most obvious one: he’s puffing Yoshida up to increase his trade value. Entering his age-31 season with three years and $55.8 million left on his contract, reports indicate that the rehabbing Yoshida has yet to generate any interest around the league. The Red Sox will likely have to pay down some money if they hope to move him. Yoshida has a career 121 wRC+ against righties and an 84 wRC+ against lefties. A DH who should really only be platooning isn’t a particularly valuable piece, but a bounce back candidate who can play the outfield has significantly more value. If planting this story was Cora's goal, then he succeeded, as there are now headlines like "Red Sox Hoping To Use Masataka Yoshida in Outfield" out there. It's hard to imagine this moving the needle, however. The truth is, however, that even if a fully healthy Yoshida could play in the outfield, there are few teams for whom he’d represent an improvement in the outfield.