For the Red Sox, it would be something of a minor miracle if an opposing team came sniffing around the roster and decided that what it really needs is a 32-year-old designated hitter who struggles to stay healthy, doesn’t hit lefties very well and has 29-home-run power … over three seasons. At this point, that’s what the big Red Sox signing from the winter of 2022–Masataka Yoshida–has amounted to in the big leagues.
Oh, and the Red Sox are in the process of paying him $90 million for that production, with two years and $37 million still yet to dole out.
If Boston could find a team to whom they could jettison Yoshida, they surely would. But to no surprise, not many teams have an interest in a player with Yoshida’s decidedly limited profile. There’s the hope that another team might look at Yoshida as a reclamation project who just needs a change of scenery–he did hit .289 with 15 homers in his first Red Sox season–but any trade would require the Red Sox to eat a significant portion of Yoshida’s salary.
Red Sox Need to Take on Money to Make Trade Happen
That is not something that Red Sox ownership has shown much appetite for and, indeed, when Boston made the trade to send away Rafael Devers this summer, they took a relatively weak package from the Giants just so that Boston did not have to absorb any of Devers’ salary.
There’s no getting rid of Yoshida without taking on money, though. Devers was still a proven slugger when he was traded. Yoshida, though, doesn’t really have a defined role in MLB, so trading him would amount to creating a roster spot and moving on from a mistake.
That’s the kind of thing that top teams like the Dodgers and Yankees do regularly–take chances, enjoy the rewards when those chances pay off, and live with the mistakes when they don’t. Yoshida has been a bust in Boston, and it’s past time to admit it.
Masataka Yoshida Just Does Not Fit
At Bleacher Report, despite the headwinds against making a deal for Yoshida, he is named as the Red Sox’s most likely trade candidate this offseason.
Analyst Kerry Miller write, “The Red Sox have no real use for Yoshida at this point, with Roman Anthony, Wilyer Abreu, Jarren Duran and Ceddanne Rafaela all now regulars in the lineup. It’d be one thing if they could put him in a platoon where they bench him against LHP, but Boston’s lineup is heavily left-handed even without Yoshida.
“They’ll probably need to eat some of his contract in order to move him, but it’s also probably worth it.”
Probably worth it, indeed. The Red Sox want a power bat at DH, and dumping Yoshida would be a necessity in that. But convincing Red Sox ownership to pay a player not to suit up for the team is no easy task.
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