Masataka Yoshida is an extremely cool ballplayer. The 29-year-old has hit .300/.400/.500 six seasons in a row, and despite 20-homer power and plenty of walks, he never strikes out. I’m serious: in 508 Pacific League plate appearances in 2022, Yoshida walked 80 times and struck out just 41 times. That’s a BB% and K% of 15.7% and 8.1%, respectively. He makes Alejandro Kirk look like Dave Kingman. Now, will a 5-foot-8 left fielder be able to keep hitting 20 homers a year on this side of the Pacific? I don’t know, but I’m excited to find out.

Yoshida is, so far, the crown jewel of the offseason for the Red Sox. Between his five-year contract and posting fee, he cost Boston $105.4 million, a significant outlay for any team. If you roll in the posting fee, that’s within rounding distance of the AAV Brandon Nimmo and Kyle Schwarber got in free agency; that indicates Boston views Yoshida as an impact player at his position.

On Thursday, the Red Sox officially announced Yoshida’s signing and added him to the 40-man roster. In order to make room, they designated Jeter Downs for assignment. And suddenly what should have been a joyous day was dampened by the weight of reflection. Read the rest of this entry »

Gather ‘round the fireplace, dear FanGraphs readers, because today I want to tell you a story. Ye be warned: It’s not for the faint of heart, and it’s probably more appropriate for Halloween night. But a little bit of spookiness never hurt the Christmas spirit — just ask Tim Burton. Here is the outfield depth chart for the Red Sox before they signed Masataka Yoshida:

Scary, huh? Enrique Hernández and Alex Verdugo are good — it’s the individuals behind them that create the horror. Jarren Duran here is like butter scraped over too much bread (which, from the butter’s perspective, has to be a pretty gruesome experience). Then there’s Hoy Park and Wilyer Abreu, who shouldn’t be getting big slices of the outfield pie on a supposedly contending team. Rob Refsnyder did put up a 146 wRC+ out of nowhere this season (in 57 games), but, c’mon. Yoshida’s arrival doesn’t alleviate the Red Sox’s shallow depth. But he is something they desperately needed: a fixture in left field. Read the rest of this entry »

For more than a decade, Kenley Jansen has been a part of the fabric of baseball. He’s spent most of that time with the Dodgers, logging a dozen seasons as the reliever whose late-inning fortune sent Los Angeles fans into agony or ecstasy. Last year, he decamped for Atlanta, and this year his travels will continue: as Jeff Passan first reported, he’s shipping up to Boston on a two-year, $32 million deal.

At 35, Jansen is headed into the tail end of his career, though he’s still got plenty in the tank. Over the past five years, he’s declined from one of the best few relievers in the game – he posted a 2.01 ERA from 2013-17 – to merely an effective bullpen arm, with an aggregate 3.08 ERA and the peripherals to match. That’s a relatively graceful downward path, though it hasn’t always felt that way. Dodgers fans alternated between bringing out pitchforks and convincing themselves that Jansen was returning to his earlier dominance over four of those years, and he was unsteady at times in Atlanta, though he put together a solid season on the whole.

His pitch mix has likewise changed with age. Early in his career, “mix” might even have been a misnomer, because it implies a minimum of two things. From 2010-18, 87% of his pitches were cutters. That’s more of a pitch monoculture, or a pitch manufactured subdivision; every house identical, every plant eerily perfect. Read the rest of this entry »

For most of Winter Meetings, the San Diego Padres vigorously pursued a few of the best free agents available only to come up short on Trea Turner and Aaron Judge. Well, they finally made their big splash after most of the reporters and analysts had returned to their climatologically inferior home cities, signing shortstop Xander Bogaerts, formerly of the Boston Red Sox, to a monster 11-year contract. Bogaerts now stands an impressive $280 million richer and a lot of the Padres’ positional dominoes have fallen into place for the 2023 season.

If you’re ever prone to thinking that a player opt-out is mere frippery, like Roy Oswalt’s tractor or the mustache wax benefit that Rollie Fingers received, Bogaerts’ prior contract extension ought to firmly disabuse you of the notion. Bogaerts would have originally hit free agency after the 2020 season, but he came to terms with the Red Sox on a six-year, $120 million deal to keep him in Boston for what was likely to be the rest of his prime. Here’s what the projection looked like if we go back to that blessed time when we might have mistaken “Covid” for the first name of a Swedish scientist:

Read the rest of this entry »

Clubhouse Analyst

Location: Boston, MA
Department: Baseball Operations
Status: Full-Time

Position Overview:
The Boston Red Sox are seeking a Clubhouse Analyst for the team’s Major League Strategic Information (MLSI) department. The role is a clubhouse-based position that works closely with department leadership to support the Major League coaching staff. The role will primarily use all MLSI materials to help drive progress in the process of improving internal player production and advance scouting in support of the Major League staff. These duties include but are not limited to creating and automating reports, operating technology that aids in player development and communicating data-driven insights to Major League staff and players.

Responsibilities:

• Effectively present analyses through the use of written reports and data visualization to disseminate insights to the ML coaching staff, players and other members of Baseball Operations Leadership.
• Travel with the Major League team throughout the season, including to our spring training facility. During the offseason this position will be based in Boston working with Baseball Analytics.
• Create and automate reports that aid in player development and advance scouting.
• Remain up-to-date with league transactions so all materials include current rosters and daily lineups, including any last-minute changes prior to that day’s game.
• Support pre-game and pre-series advance meetings with the ML coaching staff.
• Set up and operate technology that aids in player development (i.e. portable TrackMan) during bullpens and batting practice.
• Create and track progress of player-specific goals, and provide regular feedback to the players directly.
• Generate one-off summary reports as requested from coaching staff or Front Office.

Characteristics / Qualifications:

• Demonstrated understanding of baseball data analysis.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate technical ideas to non-technical audiences using data visualization.
• Experience working for a Major League club preferred.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office.
• Experience with programming languages (e.g., R) and modern database technologies (e.g., SQL) a plus.
• Ability to work evening, weekend, and holiday hours is a must.

The Red Sox (or FSM) requires proof of being up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment, subject to applicable legal requirements. Up-to-date means having received all recommended COVID-19 vaccination doses in the primary series and a booster dose(s) when eligible, per CDC guidelines.

Prospective employees will receive consideration without discrimination based on race, religious creed, color, sex, age, national origin, handicap, disability, military/veteran status, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression or protected genetic information.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Boston Red Sox.

Move over, Jacob deGrom; this was the best free-agent deal of last week:

Right-handed reliever Chris Martin and the Boston Red Sox are in agreement on a two-year, $17.5 million contract, pending physical, sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN. Martin, 36, was magnificent for the Dodgers after a deadline trade and parlayed it into a multiyear deal.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 2, 2022

I kid, but only sort of! Obviously, deGrom is a phenomenal pitcher. The Rangers did well to court him. And this isn’t me advocating for the importance of “surplus value” or whatever vague finance jargon gets thrown around these days. I just really like Chris Martin, and I also think the Red Sox got a ton of bang for their buck for signing him.

There are also things not to like about Martin, at least on the surface. If people objected to a 35-year-old first baseman getting three years, imagine their discomfort at the sight of a 36-year-old reliever getting two years. His fastball velocity is pedestrian by modern standards, his pitch movement data isn’t eye-popping, and he doesn’t throw from an unorthodox angle to compensate. In 2021, Martin’s strikeout rate plummeted to 18%, and it’s worrisome to think he could return to such a dramatic low. When the risks are lined up like this, a two-year pact comes off as unappealing. Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Wacha is, in many ways, the same pitcher who broke into the big leagues with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2013. The changeup is still his best weapon, and his fastball velocity has remained in the 93–95-mph range throughout. The 31-year-old right-hander has changed teams a few times, but he’s largely kept the same identity.

There have been tweaks to his repertoire and pitch usage. That’s inevitable over the course of what has been a 10-year career, one that will continue will a team yet to be determined. Following seven years as a Cardinal and subsequent one-year stints with the New York Mets, Tampa Bay Rays, and Boston Red Sox, Wacha is now a free agent. He’s hitting the open market on a high note; in 23 starts comprising 127.1 innings last season, the Texas A&M product went 11–2 with a 3.32 ERA.

Wacha discussed his evolution as a pitcher on the final day of the 2022 regular season.

———

David Laurila: To varying degrees, all pitchers evolve. How many times would you say you’ve changed over the years?

Michael Wacha: “From my rookie year, I’d probably say… a couple of times? But I don’t know. I mean, each year I’m trying to work on something different to help out my repertoire, to bolster it or make it better. So it’s kind of hard to say, but there have been a couple of changes.”

Laurila: Can you give any examples? Read the rest of this entry »

If the BABIP gods change their minds, the Red Sox are the first in line. Last week, they inked left-handed reliever Joely Rodríguez, formerly of the Mets, to an incentive-laden, one-year contract with a team option for 2024. If he pitches like his peripheral numbers indicate he can, the signing should prove fruitful for Boston.

Rodríguez will make a base salary of $1.5 million in 2023, with a chance to earn an additional $2.25 million in incentives. He’ll receive a $50,000 bonus if he pitches in 30 games and an extra $50,000 each for reaching the 40-, 50-, 60-, and 70-game plateaus. On top of that, he’ll earn a bigger bonus the longer he remains on the active roster — an extra $500,000 each for logging 30, 60, 90, and 120 days.

Barring a significant injury or complete meltdown, Rodríguez should easily reach 120 days of service time in 2023. In other words, that $2 million bonus is practically money in his pocket. On the other hand, the games-pitched incentive is less of a guarantee. Rodríguez pitched 50-plus games in both of the past two seasons but has yet to cross the 60-game threshold in his MLB career. He has gotten close, however, and 2023 could be the year it finally happens. With the Red Sox, not only will he find himself a little higher up on the bullpen depth chart, but there will also be more relief opportunities to go around, as Boston’s starting rotation is unlikely to pitch quite as deep into games as New York’s. All that to say, he can reasonably expect to earn the $50,000 bonus for pitching 30, 40, and 50 games, and he might pocket another $50,000 for reaching the 60-game plateau; 70 games still seems a little out of reach.

After the deal’s first year, the Red Sox have a team option for $4.25 million (with another $250,000 in games-pitched incentives). If they choose not to exercise the option, Rodríguez receives a $500,000 buyout. In short, the deal is for a minimum of one year and $2 million, with a maximum potential of two years and $8.25 million. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the first team to go this year is the Boston Red Sox.

Batters

The Red Sox finished fourth in the American League in runs scored in 2022, but there’s no denying that removing Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez from the roster is a giant hit for the team to take. They may replace the missing value (if not all of it), but it’s a roster with a lot of work to do to be an elite unit. The projections see the offense as being driven mostly by Rafael Devers and Trevor Story, with Story getting quite the bullish projection. Having Triston Casas on the team would be helpful on average, and he has far more upside than either Eric Hosmer or Bobby Dalbec, but as of right now, the team will unfortunately be able to find quite a lot of playing time for the latter two, at least as the roster currently stands. Read the rest of this entry »

Thad Ward should be of interest to several teams come next month’s Rule 5 draft. Currently no. 15 on our Boston Red Sox prospect rankings with a 40+ FV, the 25-year-old right-hander wasn’t added to the club’s 40-man roster — a decision that left Eric Longenhagen “a tad surprised.” Our lead prospect analyst explained that Ward “looked good in the Arizona Fall League, locating 92-94 mph fastballs while mixing in two above-average breaking balls… [and] looks like a possible bulk relief fit right now.”

Three years ago, Ward looked to be well on his way to securing a spot in Boston’s starting rotation. When he was featured at FanGraphs in October 2019, the 2018 fifth-rounder out of the University of South Florida had recently been honored as the organization’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year. According to then-Red Sox pitching analyst Brian Bannister, Ward was in possession of “a Chris Sale slider.”

But fate had its say. The 2020 minor league season was canceled due to the pandemic, and the following year, Ward underwent Tommy John surgery after making just two starts with Double-A Portland. By the time he returned to action this past July, he had essentially missed two-plus seasons. But while taking the mound again didn’t feel akin to jumping back on a bicycle for the righty, he did pitch well. In 51-and-a-third innings spread across four levels, Ward fanned 66 batters and allowed just 40 hits while logging a 2.88 ERA.

Ward discussed his comeback, including how his stuff compares to what it was pre-injury, during his stint in the Arizona Fall League.

———

David Laurila: You came back from Tommy John this year. Are you the same pitcher now that you were before going under the knife?

Thad Ward: “In some ways, yes. In some ways, no. I’ve matured a lot in terms of stuff I can’t control. I don’t get as upset over mistakes. That’s not to say my competitive edge has gone away, it’s more that I feel I’m channeling it in a better direction.” Read the rest of this entry »