Masataka Yoshida’s Future in Boston Is as Clear as Mud

Just now, Old Red said:

Cora made it Very Clear yesterday when asked if Raffy would fill in at 3B, and Cora said Raffy was the DH, and DH only. It would be more than foolish to have Raffy to fill in anywhere. If he was a bad 3B playing there everyday he most likely be even worse filling in. Once again Cora was very clear that Raffy would ONLY DH.

Cora says lots of stuff.  It was proposed earlier that if Bregman went down, Devers would return to 3b.  Did Cora address that?

21 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Agreed.

Mayer is the longtime back-up at 3B.

Calling up Mayer to play 3b would be short-sighted.  Then who takes over shortstop WHEN (not if) Story goes down?

1 minute ago, notin said:

Cora says lots of stuff.  It was proposed earlier that if Bregman went down, Devers would return to 3b.  Did Cora address that?

You can read anything you want into what Cora said YESTERDAY, but to me it was Very Clear, and direct. Once again it would be more than foolish IMO to put Raffy ANYWHERE in the field again, and yes that means 1B.

19 hours ago, drewski6 said:

But I do think that obviously Refsnyder will start a significant percentage of time vs lefties. I just dont think its going to be a straight swap for Abreu this year because I think Abreu (mostly due to his age, hes entering his prime now + hes shown a tendency to improve) has taken another step forward and has become too good to platoon. Hes prob .800 vs LHP, .900 vs RHP, GG defense.

Yes, MVP votes

.800 vs LHP?  That’s quite the bold prediction given he’s at .524 right now, and want much better in the minors.  

I agree that .900 vs RHP is doable for Abreu.  It’s not even a bold prediction, since his career number is .870…

4 minutes ago, notin said:

Calling up Mayer to play 3b would be short-sighted.  Then who takes over shortstop WHEN (not if) Story goes down?

Why worry so much on what would, or could happen? Only 2 games of the season has been played. Things will take care of themselves when the situation arrives. Mayer could go down himself, which wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility. Anthony could too. Ponder that.

2 minutes ago, Hitch said:

He's undoubtedly depth. but not through any kind of design. And he's mostly only going to to DH (which means he won't) unless we get enough injuries that he has to take the field. Anthony and Mayer (if Campbell needed to go into the outfield due to an injury crisis) are ahead of Yoshi and rightly so.

The management are going to try and move him, eat money, and hope to get something they can use in return. Good luck doing that, but that's what they'll try. Otherwise I can see him saying in AAA which is fine, but far from ideal.

I don't want him gone just for the sake of it. 

I’m not sure Mayer and Anthony are ahead of Yoshida.  The Sox don’t have to DFA anyone to call up Yoshida.  And like it or not, that really is a big deal for most teams, especially since the season has started…

1 hour ago, notin said:

I called him depth.  And right now, he is.  Who said anything about long term?  
 

His salary is prohibitive enough that dealing him means paying him to play elsewhere while opening up a roster spot for a lesser player.  Better off holding on to him right now…

Yoshida can be stashed in AAA, but it's hard to build trade value there. I guess, if he shows he's healthy and hits over .850 in AAA, some team might knock off a couple-three million off the cost and take a flyer on him. A contending team, in need of a DH, LHB or (gasp) a LF'er, might take him off our hands, if we pay $12-14M a year off his $18M/yr owed. That might still be worth it to us, unless Devers goes on the IL for a long time.

Even then, we could DH Refsnyder vs LHPs and rest others at DH vs RHPs.

Right now, we have no 40 man roster crunch, and when we decide to add Anthony and Mayer, we will probably have someone we can add to the 60 Day IL , maybe retroactively for Gio, Crawford or Bello, but we still have Perales, we could add today, if needed. Nobody will cry, if we DFA Sabol or Sogard to add Mayer, either. (We'd need to add Zavala to the 40, if a catcher gets hurt, but we can delay a DFA, until then.)

One issue is, very few teams are looking to trade, right now, and even fewer for a DH-only player. Trading him for another roster dump player may be an option, but I scoured those options over the winter and found nothing that looked like a plus to both teams. Maybe I missed someone.

I think, at some point, we will have to bite the bullet and cut ties with Yoshida, and try to minimize the financial loss as much as possible via some trade. I know including a prospect to lower the cost hit seem counterproductive, but we do have some bottlenecks at some positions, so maybe we can cut ties with a prospect before we lose them to Rule 5 or blockage.

I'm not suggesting we trade any of these guys, but here are some Rule 5 guys coming up in December: Bleis, Castro, I Coffey, Dean, Hickey, Hoppe, Jordan, Liu, Monegro, Mullins, Paez, Ravelo, Sandlin & Sikes. Some of these guys would have to have very unlikely monster years to be considered for the taking via Rule 5, and some have very little trade value, but we could part with a few of these guys and not miss them, at all.

1 hour ago, notin said:

I’m not sure Mayer and Anthony are ahead of Yoshida.  The Sox don’t have to DFA anyone to call up Yoshida.  And like it or not, that really is a big deal for most teams, especially since the season has started…

You don't have to DFA anyone to add Mayer or Anthony to the 40, either. Just put Perales on the 60 Day IL. There is no way Perales plays for the big club, this year, and certainly not in the next 60 Days.

The second add would need a DFA or a decision to 60 Day someone else (Crawford? Bello?)

I don't see Yoshida s depth to anyone but Devers, and even the DH slot could be filled by Refsnyder and a rotation of everyday players given a rest at DH vs RH'd starters.

If an OF'er gets hurt, maybe Yoshida could play the shorter corner OF slot, but I'd still rather just call up Anthony to play FT OF, or even give Abreu that chance to play FT- not platoon, and let Ref play corner OF vs LHPs, as he will now, anyway.

How valuable is a back-up DH only player?

13 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

You don't have to DFA anyone to add Mayer or Anthony to the 40, either. Just put Perales on the 60 Day IL. There is no way Perales plays for the big club, this year, and certainly not in the next 60 Days.

The second add would need a DFA or a decision to 60 Day someone else (Crawford? Bello?)

I don't see Yoshida s depth to anyone but Devers, and even the DH slot could be filled by Refsnyder and a rotation of everyday players given a rest at DH vs RH'd starters.

If an OF'er gets hurt, maybe Yoshida could play the shorter corner OF slot, but I'd still rather just call up Anthony to play FT OF, or even give Abreu that chance to play FT- not platoon, and let Ref play corner OF vs LHPs, as he will now, anyway.

How valuable is a back-up DH only player?