Boston Red Sox Manager Alex Cora certainly has a tough road to travel this season. After finishing dead last in the American League East in 2022 he lost Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez and Christian Vazquez to free agency. he has to figure out how to make up those home runs and RBI, Being a small market team that isn't easy. You can't just sign one big bat to make up for three. (sorry I promised to be nice.) Enter Masataka Yoshida.
This tweet was to good to pass up. All kidding aside. Can Boston's 90 million dollar import help mitigate the loss of all three and Trevor Story to the knife? No, of course not. But Chaim Bloom thinks he can at least help. On Sunday he spoke with reporters in Fort Myers.
“This guy has the chance to put together a really special at-bats in the big leagues. The strike-zone judgement, the contact skills are off the charts. He hits the ball hard. One of the cool things you see here in camp is how he is interacting. I don’t want to sell short how difficult it is to navigate the language barrier and cultural differences.”
This is true on all points. I know shocking right. Yoshida led the Japanese Pacific league in hitting twice. While his experience isn't at the level of Stateside AAA it is experience. It is a good base to judge what he may do here in Boston. This isn't a kid, Yoshida is 29 years old and in his prime physically and mentally at the plate. Whether you chose to believe reports from around the league that bloom overpaid for Yoshida or not. Price tag be dammed at this point. The Sox need a table setter and Yoshida could be that man.
Alex Cora said Yoshida “has been good about his routine” and has been good about learning the team’s structure.” Comfort in your surroundings is and getting your routine down is paramount in this game.
Yoshida has a .326 average with a .426 OBP in his seven seasons playing for the Buffalos. Even if those numbers dip and they will, if he can keep it at .300 and .400 that would best all but Xander Bogaerts in Average and every position player in OBP that started more than 50 games for the sox last season. And I'm not the only person who thinks this can happen.
We are looking at pieces of the puzzle here people. The time for complaining about the size of that puzzle is over. Lets just find how they all fit.
As always you can follow/give me grief on Twitter @Tmurph207
