To Trade or Not to Trade: Masataka Yoshida

I think the best time to trade Yoshida may be this summer, but he will have to be showing he can hit near .800 to make a difference over trading him, this winter. Either way, we will have to pay more than half of his remaining contract, and maybe 70-80%.

Finding a taker is the toughest task. Taking on  a big or bigger contract might work, if we get back an overpaid pitcher who still has some hopes of being helpful. The problem with that is, when a team is looking to dump a grossly overpaid player who still has some value, they usually want a full dump. They are not looking to just save a couple million a year.

To me, STL might be our best hope, and getting Arenado back to play 1B (NOT !B!!!!) would greatly improve our defense and our offense vs LHPs. He is clearly in decline, and may drop off a cliff, at any moment, but Yoshida at DH for us, forces Casas and Devers to play a position. Plus, I'm not sure Yoshida is any better than Anthony, Campbell and others who are looking for a position to play. Also, Refsnyder hits LHPs better than anyone on the team, right now, and his best position is a DH platoon.

I'd offer STL some secondary prospects, and maybe even Crawford, if we add another SP'er like Burnes, Manaea, Flaherty or Pivetta. Arendao is owed more, but COL pays $5M x 2 years of his deal and his third year is $15M vs Yoshida's $18M. Just get it done!

I'd try to keep Arias, but if the plan is to keep Mayer and Romero, I'd be okay with making Arias part of the deal. We might offer Bleis, Cespedes, Romero or JH Garcia, instead. I'd hesitate to trade 2 of these guys, especially if one is Arias, but I might offer two from the others, with one being Romero.

I'm not sure that gets it done. We might have to add Fitts, Dobbins or Sandlin to the list of who STL can take.

I've read of a couple suggested offers for Arenado that do not include Yoshida, but they do include STL including hefty chunks of cash that could be subbed out for Yoshida, assuming STL is interested. Here is one:

Cespedes and Fitts for Helsley, Graceffo & Arenado + $15M. (COL pays $5M x 2 for him, as it is.) I don't see why STL would give us Helsley, but I'd do this trade by giving Yoshida with no Helsley.

I'd offer Arias, Cespedes, Fitts & Yoshida for Helsley & Arenado and no money. Arenado is owed $32M, $27M and $15 or $74M/3 - $10M COL pays= $64M/3 ($25.5M AAV for 2 years.) We owe Yoshida $54M/3. STL "saves $10M plus what Helsley will cost.

SI reported this possible offer:

Bleis, Fitts & Yoshida for Arenado

They go on to say this, and I agree, "However, to this point, Boston has stayed strong that they're not moving Devers off of his position. If that's the case, the trade doesn't much sense.  "

4 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

A slow, poor defensive contact LHB with no power at Fenway. How could it go wrong?  

That formula did work out before with Swamp Shark movie star Wade Boggs…

7 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

We have 3 left-handed DH types in Devers, Casas and Yoshida.  It's not ideal.  This was one of the dumbest signings ever.  

3 left-handed DH types plus a DH only RHB in Refsnyder. That makes 4 DH types not just on the 40, but on the 26, as well. That is already 2-3 too many.

I just gotta say while I never mind giving up good prospects to acquire an All-Star starting pitcher, I'm against giving away any prospects just to convince another team to take Yoshida. 

Sorry, that was too passive. I am absolutely positively 100 percent apoplectic with the idea of giving away any ballplayers who may help the Red Sox in the future -- and that includes Masataka Yoshida. 

Yoshi may be the worst free agent signing in the Bloom Era (and he had a lot of competition), but he's not the worst DH in team history, and he's not clogging up the roster of an otherwise World Series contender. He may even contribute as part of a solution to what everyone forgets is still one of the worst whiffing offenses in baseball (even without Tyler O'Neill).

Boston has so many other holes still to fill and worry about.

19 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Boggs was a bad defender? Baseball Reference says otherwise. 

Baseball-Reference also gave Yoshida -0.9 dWAR for playing 1 inning in LF when nothing got hit to him.  Thats your source?
 

Early on in Boggs career, he was a very sloppy third baseman.  He did improve in time…

16 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

I just gotta say while I never mind giving up good prospects to acquire an All-Star starting pitcher, I'm against giving away any prospects just to convince another team to take Yoshida. 

Sorry, that was too passive. I am absolutely positively 100 percent apoplectic with the idea of giving away any ballplayers who may help the Red Sox in the future -- and that includes Masataka Yoshida. 

Yoshi may be the worst free agent signing in the Bloom Era (and he had a lot of competition), but he's not the worst DH in team history, and he's not clogging up the roster of an otherwise World Series contender. He may even contribute as part of a solution to what everyone forgets is still one of the worst whiffing offenses in baseball (even without Tyler O'Neill).

Boston has so many other holes still to fill and worry about.

The Sox aren’t trading Yoshida.  Not coming off surgery.  He’ll be the DH once activated and platoon with Refsnyder in that role.

Add a RHH left fielder (Teoscar? Taylor Ward? Nick Castellanos?) and a catcher that can be had on a longer deal than 1 year.  And the lineup will be complete, barring any re-arrangement for defensive purposes…

14 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

And if they don't trade Casas we're going to be stuck with bad defense at 1B and 3B for another season.

Holding onto Yoshida any longer feels like postponing the inevitable.

They have obviously tried to trade Casas already.  If they’re actually moving him, then Yoshida becomes more necessary. 
 

My prediction would be that when the season starts, Casas will be at 1b and Devers at 3b and they’ll ignore the defense, and that decision will be independent of Yoshida.  And Yoshida was hitting pretty well until he hurt his shoulder…

1 minute ago, Bellhorn04 said:

He hit well in July and August.  The rest of the year he stunk.  

He won't be missed.

I think he won’t be missed because he won’t be gone…

8 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Do you have a better defensive source than Baseball Reference? Maybe your EYE TEST, notin? Please remind me what his defense looked like early on in 1985. Were you in elementary school at that time? 

1985?  The year he cut down on his errors by getting to fewer batted balls?  And you were 7?  Maybe?

B-R does give him 1 dWAR-ish for most of his years back then, which is good.  Fangraphs doesn’t bother backfilling that data, but they do give him excellent defensive runs marks.  So maybe he’s one of those guys that later evaluation techniques assessto be much better.

Of course, he was still a left-handed hitter with limited power…

11 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Well, the good news is they can just outright release him any time...

They can also demote him to Worcester, as he has options. 
 

And they might when he comes back if he misses time early on.  But he’s not getting traded…

57 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

I just gotta say while I never mind giving up good prospects to acquire an All-Star starting pitcher, I'm against giving away any prospects just to convince another team to take Yoshida. 

Sorry, that was too passive. I am absolutely positively 100 percent apoplectic with the idea of giving away any ballplayers who may help the Red Sox in the future -- and that includes Masataka Yoshida. 

Yoshi may be the worst free agent signing in the Bloom Era (and he had a lot of competition), but he's not the worst DH in team history, and he's not clogging up the roster of an otherwise World Series contender. He may even contribute as part of a solution to what everyone forgets is still one of the worst whiffing offenses in baseball (even without Tyler O'Neill).

Boston has so many other holes still to fill and worry about.

I'm only for doing a Yoshida dump, if it forces Casas/Devers to share the 1B/DH duties. That would be a huge plus to every pitcher on our team. It would be like adding a pitcher. It would also allow both Casas and Devers to "rest" as a DH and play more games and get more PAs, than if they played 150-155 games at corner IF. That is one big plus.

Opening up a 40 man and 26 man roster slot for Campbell or Anthony would be another major boost, although the 40 man part can be done in other ways. The money saved part could help us improve at another slot.

It's not just about prospects lost, although I get your point. Maybe trading Casas (and others) for pitching, moving Devers to 1B and just going with Yoshida-Ref at DH is better, although losing Casas and O'Neill's bats could be a major blow.

53 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

He hit well in July and August.  The rest of the year he stunk.  

He won't be missed.

Very cursory and misleading summary.

He came out slow for the first 2 weeks in April.  Then started crushing the ball (.953 OPS the last 20 games), got hurt and missed 6 weeks.  Struggled his first 15 games back in June.  Then crushed again (.899 OPS) through July and August.  And at some point tore  his labrum and struggled playing through it.

He has talent and he can hit.  He needs to stay healthy…

12 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

He has a ceiling of 1.5 WAR.  The numbers bear that out.  I'm not ripping him just for the sake of it.  He's a below average player and a roster clog.  Sucks but that's the way it is.  

I think it is possible for him to be a 2.0+ WAR guy, but 1.5 seems fair enough.

Factor in adjustment to the culture and injuries, and he might have been a 2.0.