{"id":538595,"date":"2026-03-15T19:41:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T19:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/538595\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T19:41:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T19:41:19","slug":"oft-injured-boston-red-sox-slugger-named-one-of-worst-contracts-in-major-league-baseball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/538595\/","title":{"rendered":"Oft-injured Boston Red Sox slugger named one of worst contracts in Major League Baseball"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Red Sox<\/a> have made several massive financial commitments in recent years, but one analyst believes one deal stands out as the worst on the roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Tim Kelly of Bleacher Report, Masataka Yoshida’s contract currently ranks as the team\u2019s worst.<\/p>\n

Yoshida originally signed a five-year, $90 million contract with Boston after making the jump from Japan to Major League Baseball. While the move seemed to be a smart one at that time, he hasn’t swung the bat or been on the field enough to justify paying him what they do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Masataka Yoshida has gotten strong results in the World Baseball Classic for Japan, it’s fair to say that he’s been a bust to this point in his MLB career,\u201d Kelly wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver his first three MLB seasons, Yoshida has been worth just 1.5 WAR total, per FanGraphs.”<\/p>\n

Another issue has been Yoshida\u2019s defensive problems. Even if we look at the player he’s been when he’s healthy, it probably isn’t someone who deserves to be paid $90 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince posting minus-four defensive runs saved and minus-eight outs above average in left field during his rookie season, the Red Sox have treated Yoshida like a DH, as he’s played just 45 innings in the outfield over the last two seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cYoshida is an obvious change-of-scenery candidate for a Red Sox team that has a surplus of outfielders, and will likely use Jarren Duran as their primary DH to open the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Boston ultimately decides to move Yoshida, it could be an attempt to reset the roster and better allocate resources more than anything else.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Red Sox have made several massive financial commitments in recent years, but one analyst believes one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-538595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}