Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow went into this offseason promising to find a power bat for the middle of the Boston batting order. But he whiffed on the biggest available name out there when former New York Mets home run king Pete Alonso signed with the Baltimore Orioles on a five-year, $155 million deal.
The Red Sox had reportedly offered Alonso a three-year deal worth $85 million.
But Breslow nonetheless fulfilled his promise on Sunday, albeit in considerably less dramatic fashion, when he traded three prospects â headed by Boston’s No. 11 prospect, per Baseball America, right-handed pitcher Hunter Dobbins â for St. Louis Cardinals designated hitter and first baseman Willson Contreras.
The acquisition of the 10-year veteran with 172 career home runs appears to spell the end, at least as far as the Red Sox are concerned, for another Boston hitter with an expensive contract, according to a top MLB columnist for Fox Sports.
4th-Year Left-Handed Hitter on Way Out?
At age 32, outfielder and DH Masataka Yoshida will be entering his fourth major league season, after signing with the Red Sox before the 2022 season following a seven-year career starring for the Orix Buffaloes in his native Japan.
Yoshida did not come cheaply. Under previous chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, Boston paid the Buffaloes a $15.4 million posting fee to sign Yoshida and then awarded the NPB star a five-year, $90 million contract â a total cost of more than $105 million to acquire the 5-foot-8, 192-pound left-handed hitter.
But Yoshida, in part due to injuries, has been largely a disappointment at that price. In three seasons he has played in just 303 of 486 possible games, with 29 home runs and a passable but far from spectacular .762 career OPS.
Red Sox Out of Room on Roster
With the addition of Contreras, it appears the Red Sox have run out of room for Yoshida. He has been used mainly as a DH, with 194 games in that role, and his outfield defense has always been subpar â as his career total of minus-4 defensive runs saved indicates.
With 2025 rookie sensation Roman Anthony along with Gold Glove winners Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu appearing to have a lock on all three outfield spots, Yoshida’s defensive reps would be extremely limited in any case.
Analyst Predicts ‘Odd Man Out’
All of those factors led Fox Sports MLB columnist Deesha Thosar, in an analysis of the Contreras trade published Monday, to predict that Yoshida will be the âodd man outâ on the Red Sox roster in the aftermath of the trade â also predicting that rather than dump incumbent, often injured first baseman Triston Casas, the addition of Contreras could be good news for the 2018 first-round draft pick.
“The addition of Contreras allows Boston to slow-play Casasâ return â he can begin the season in Triple-A and ease his way back into the lineup whenever heâs fully healed. And even when Casas does bounce back into the major league lineup, he can split time with Contreras at DH and first base,” Thosar wrote.
But things look considerably more bleak for Yoshida.
“The left-handed-swinging Fukui, Japan, native will see the majority of his batting opportunities go to Contreras and Casas. Yoshida has spent his two seasons with the Red Sox in left field as well as DH, but they now have a surplus of players clogging up the outfield,” the Fox Sports analyst wrote. “Yoshida is taking up a roster spot, and the Red Sox could be having trouble moving him for any real value since heâs essentially a one-tool player coming off a down year.”
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