\u2217 It\u2019s not all Masataka Yoshida\u2019s fault that his first three seasons with the Red Sox have been so disappointing.<\/p>\n
There were injuries, including a major one to his shoulder requiring surgery. And no one forced the Red Sox to overbid (five years, $90 million) for him when he was posted to play Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s clear now, too, that Yoshida is far from the star he was envisioned to be. Yoshida does one thing well: he puts the bat to ball and makes contact. But he lacks power, isn\u2019t a good (or fast) baserunner and is a subpar defender.<\/p>\n
This spring, he\u2019s also third on the Sox\u2019 DH depth chart behind Jarren Duran and Roman Anthony. Unless either of those outfielders is injured or in need of some rest, what possible motive could there be to list him in the lineup over either Duran or Anthony?<\/p>\n
Thanks his underperformance \u2014 he has an OPS+ of just 109 \u2014 there\u2019s little trade value with Yoshida, especially when you consider that he has $37.2 million coming to him over the next two seasons.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s time for the Red Sox to consider that money to be sunken cost. They could attach a prospect to him in the hope that another team would take on the majority of the remaining money, but if it required them to part with David Sandlin to rid themselves of Jordan Hooks, what it would take to unload Yoshida, who\u2019s due half again what Hooks was set to earn.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not my money or yours, of course, but the best path here would be an outright release. It\u2019s been done before and with more money out the door (Pablo Sandoval in 2017). And if the Red Sox are as intent on winning in 2026 as they say they are, it makes no sense to have Yoshida clogging up a roster spot.<\/p>\n
By all accounts, Yoshida has been a good teammate. A release in spring training would allow him to find an interested team (at minimim salary) and enable the Red Sox to better utilize a bench spot.<\/p>\n
\u2217 After enjoying a terrific season, the Patriots now have their work cut out for them.<\/p>\n
History reminds us that only two-thirds of losing teams in the Super Bowl even qualify for the playoffs the following year and only eight teams in the first 59 Super Bowls got back to the championship game the next season.<\/p>\n
Add in a much more difficult schedule (out of division opponents: Bears, Chiefs, Chargers, Jaguars, Broncos, Packers and a rematch with the Seahawks) and the need to upgrade both the offensive line and pass rush, the Patriots could well be a better team in 2026 and yet somehow win three or four fewer games.<\/p>\n
Figuring out where to play Will Campbell could be a key. It might behoove the Pats to move Campbell to guard in the short term and spend for a more experienced left tackle.<\/p>\n
\u2217 Early impressions of Team USA hockey team: They\u2019ve managed to overcome slow starts and not panic when Latvia stayed with them in the first period Thursday and Denmark took a 2-0 lead Saturday.<\/p>\n
But Jeremy Swayman isn\u2019t helping his bid to be the choice in net later in the competition when he gives up a bad goal from beyond center ice the way he did against Denmark.<\/p>\n
\u2217 Good for Adam Silver for talking so openly about tanking. The NBA commissioner acknowledged Saturday that the league needs to find a way to incentivize teams to put their best players on the court. He fined Utah and Indiana this past week for failing to do so.<\/p>\n
One path that\u2019s not, thankfully, being considered is abolishing the draft and making incoming players available as free agents. That would eliminate tanking but open up all sort of other issues.<\/p>\n
\u2217 The nice thing about watching hockey the Olympics, on the heels of last year\u2019s 4 Nations tournament, is the knowledge that the World Cup of Hockey is only two years away.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s little like the skill or drama of international hockey, with the game played at its highest level.<\/p>\n
\u2217 It only makes sense to be skeptical about whether the Red Sox can top their win total of 89 last year. There are concerns about the offense. But some projections have them as low as 82, which seems like an absurdly easy \u201cover\u201d wager.<\/p>\n
\u2217 Veteran novelist Don Winslow said he was retiring from writing crime fiction after his City trilogy a few years ago. So it was a pleasant surprise to see him return with a collection of short stories, The Final Score. His lucky readers will take what they can get.<\/p>\n
\u2217 The pettiness of NFL owners knows no bounds. Embarrassed by their players giving some team facilities poor marks in an NFL Players Association survey, they went to court to stop the surveys from being made public.<\/p>\n
\u2217 The more that gets uncovered in the Emmanuel Clase, the worse things look. It\u2019s clear now that the amount of fraud that took place when Clase was on the mound was much deeper than anyone initially suspected.<\/p>\n
And, I suspect, there will be more to come \u2013 both in this case and others not yet uncovered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2217 It\u2019s not all Masataka Yoshida\u2019s fault that his first three seasons with the Red Sox have been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[242984,8475,64,63,4034,179799,591,14636,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-481653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-2026-spring-training","9":"tag-american-league","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-greenfly","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-smile","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}