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The story
A US outlet has predicted the Red Sox will cut ties with Masataka Yoshida this offseason, reporting that “his contract has already become a sunk cost.” The harsh assessment points to Yoshida’s low career fWAR and the fact that, as a DH-only player, he doesn’t start against lefties or when he’s in a slump. On 5ch’s livestream board, reactions poured in covering his batting numbers, how he’s being deployed, and comparisons with other Japanese players thriving in MLB right now. While most posters agreed he hasn’t performed to the level of his contract, some argued the real problem is how he’s being used, leaving opinion split.
Is Masataka Yoshida on his way out of Boston? US media predicts an offseason release, calling his contract “already unrecoverable”
“Yoshida’s contract has already become a ‘sunk cost’ for the Red Sox.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
If he were a defensive specialist, fine, but he's DH-only and still can't hack it — that's not 'translating' at all.
He doesn't play against lefties.
He's a DH who barely plays, so he doesn't even build up fatigue.
He sits when he's struggling.
Under those conditions, saying his bat 'still translates' is kind of a stretch, honestly.
That's a totally different situation from guys who play defense and start every single day.
Unlike a starter like Sugano, demand for a weak-hitting, DH-only guy is basically zero.
He only got playing time this year because Boston got hit with a wave of injuries and had no young players to call up, like earlier this season.
He's been given 1,500 career plate appearances and has only produced 2.0 career fWAR.
If anything, his contract is the reason he got so many at-bats.
And he still delivered nothing.
That walk-off hit — supposedly his best moment of the year — kind of sums Yoshida up.
Still, a player has a responsibility to perform to the level of his contract.
Though I guess if Yoshida's attitude is 'as long as I get paid, who cares,' then he's just an irresponsible player on Anthony Rendon's level.
He's caused his team more trouble than Kei Igawa did.
He's a waste of a roster spot.
With MLB's tight roster limits, there's basically zero demand for a pinch-hitter/pinch-runner type, so there's nothing to do with him.
And since he's DH-only, he barely gets injured, so they can't even stash him in the minors that way either.
Really makes you respect him — he genuinely just wanted to pitch in the majors.
Wonder what happens with Sugano. People lump him in with Yoshida, but he's a starter who can eat around 150 innings, so some team might take a chance on him.
You can say that all you want, but if he can't do it, he can't do it.
True — if he never had the ability to begin with, there's nothing to be done about it.
What were Masataka Yoshida's years over here even for?
Murakami's batting stats are pretty solid, and Okamoto's solid overall too. They're just on a different level as players.
Weak arm, narrow defensive range.
In NPB he didn't strike out much and padded his OBP with walks or by getting pitched around,
but in MLB he strikes out like everyone else and isn't pitched around,
and combined with the huge contract, he's turned into a really awkward player to have on a roster.
He was 'Zero-Barrel Masa' after all (a nod to his near-zero Statcast barrel rate).
He's probably just not suited to MLB in general.
Can't help that — he should just go back to Japan and give it his best there.
He could probably still hit plenty well in NPB.
This guy treated signing the contract itself as the finish line.
Not every player has the drive to keep improving the way Ohtani or Yamamoto do.
Even at the WBC, he hit well against weaker opponents.
But the moment the WBC moved to the US and he faced actual top-tier countries, he went silent.
If his glove were on the level of Seiya Suzuki's, he'd rank right behind Suzuki.
Even just looking at hitting alone, he's way behind Seiya Suzuki…
Maybe a team as depleted as Boston was in the first half of this season.
But I don't think any team would build their roster around Yoshida as a starter.
Even splitting it 50/50 with the Red Sox is still 1.4 billion yen.
No team can give Yoshida that kind of special treatment alone.
If it's a 50/50 split, I feel like SoftBank might go for it.
fWAR
2023 (qualified for the batting title): 0.8
2024: 0.9
And that's the result after being given plenty of playing time.
Yoshida, who's produced nothing at all, is also at fault.
Blaming only the team doesn't make sense.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
The “sunk cost” framing that kicked off this article refers to money already spent that can’t be recovered — an economics concept holding that it shouldn’t factor into future decisions. The US outlet used this to argue that Yoshida’s contract (a five-year deal running from 2023) is now out of step with his production. The fWAR metric used as a benchmark in the thread reflects overall contribution including defense and baserunning, and since a full-time DH gets no defensive opportunities, his number is structurally hard to boost. The disconnect in the debate came down to posters defending him with “his bat still translates” without accounting for that, versus critics pointing out he’d already been given plenty of chances and still came up short. Comparisons also came up with Sugano, who’s performing well in the same stretch, and with Murakami and Okamoto, who moved over from NPB — though since they play different positions and signed very different contracts, those comparisons should be taken with a grain of salt. On the chance of a trade, a few posts touched on the mechanism where a team could absorb part of his remaining salary, but whether any deal actually happens depends on future negotiations between clubs; as of this article, it remains only a US media prediction.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Sad News] Masataka Yoshida Branded a Bad Investment Yet Again.”
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