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Red Sox Sign OF Masataka Yoshida
ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 7, 2023 19:00:19 GMT -5
I HAVE CRACKED IT!
Here are his month-by-month xwOBA and wOBA. Because I'm insane, each "month" is actually 31 days, which just means that April 30 is in the the May bucket and May 31 is in June (and March is in April and October in September, 1 game each).
.356 / .357 April .354 / .399 May .354 / .333 June .354 / .464 July 1 to 18
.251 / .238 July 19 to 31 .268 / .277 August .263 / .265 September
What the holy hell happened on July 19?
That was the last day of the Cubs / A's road trip. And after 8 days back home they went out again for a long West coast trip.
This is not being tired, in a way that a couple of good night's sleep will refresh you. It's the brain telling the body to go into a fatigue state in order to reduce the body's energy use. It's hitting the wall and sticking there.
Realize that this was a worst case scenario for a "rookie" coming from Japan -- first he's at 100% helping Japan win the WBC when his teammates are all moving there in careful stages, and then his team has a schedule that can only be described as abusive.
Before he hit that wall, he was .355 / .380 in .358 PA. That put him 46th and 14th respectively among 198 players with 250+ PA. I think a solid percentage of his karma is for real -- his bat control is so good that he seems to have a legit "hit 'em where they ain't" skill. I trust that he's getting rested under medical attention and will then work very hard to increase his stamina.
**
I speak from experience here, and with some expertise (my sleep doctor wants me to present my history as a case study for his students, for instance). Chronic lack of sleep will get you into this state. Worrying that you need to get things done, that require energy ... makes you sleep less well. Once it starts, it can be a vicious negative feedback loop.
I'm in a fatigue state right now -- I can get out to shop for groceries (sometimes a day or two later than planned), but seeing a movie in a theater just sounds exhausting. And all I have that is stressing me is a huge to-do list and an accompanying ungodly mess of papers, e.g., one of them has new bank password, but where exactly is that? And no one is paying me $15M to get any of that done.
YOU HAVEN'T CRACKED ANYTHING! You cite July 19, the last game of the Chi/Oak road trip, as a truning point. He actually performed quite well in the next six games. In fact, he raked: .350/.409/.550 for a .959 OPS. The next five games, from July 26 to 31 when he went 0-18, are skewing your analysis of the July 19 to 31 period. After that horrendous hitless stretch, he went .348/.333/.478 for an .812 OPS in six games from Aug. 1 to 7. That stretch included the last two games of the road trip and then four at Fenway. It's also worth noting that the July 19 date you claim was the start of his exhaustion was less than a week after he had four days off for the AS break. Look, it's reasonable to suspect that the grind of MLB competition and travel may have caused Yoshi to wear down. But we don't even know that for sure. There are other possibilities. He could have had an undisclosed injury. He has spoken about how much he missed his family. At some point, he could have gotten some worrisome news from back home - perhaps an illness or injury, heaven forbid, that one of his kids or his wife suffered and that weighed on him. But it's pointless to look at where a player's slump began and attribute it to the start or finish of a road trip. These guys have always just started or finished a road trip. That's what they do from April to September. But your example is even more egregiously flawed because the two hot stretches and the brutal 0-18 stretch all included home games and road games. It's not like he got off a plane, passed out from exhaustion and needed a week to recover. And I don't even know what to say about the validity of using your own stamina and ability to get to a grocery store or movie theater as a comparison point for a professional athlete's stamina. You are much older the less physically fit than Masataka Yoshida. That's not a jab at your age or condition, Eric, so don't take it personally. I've slipped well into middle age and I did so with a can of Sam Adams in my hand and a bowl of ice cream on my lap. I'm no specimen, which is why I would never compare myself to an athlete who's my junior by a couple of decades. This is a great catch! In my defense, I was already past my bedtime when I discovered those numbers. I'm very glad it was you and not me that did the dirty work to break it down better.
(I have to point out that I actually enjoy being wrong, and not just because of the obvious joke that it happens so rarely. When you're wrong about something like this, it means that it is more complicated than you thought, and more complicated is more interesting. Knowing what's true is everything to me, and all the fun.)
Now ... Yoshida did have a .413 wOBA in the 5 games after my alleged turning point (you're including my last good game in your six), but he had an awful .255 xwOBA. More lucky than good. But August 1 to 7 was pretty good, and I also note that he wasn't that bad in his last 8 games (.311 / .391, expected, actual). So the fatigue state hypothesis is impossible to justify.
Now ... we had an extraordinary strong set of reasons to expect that Yoshida would get worn out this year, at some point, to some degree. And it seems to have happened as expected. Cora talked about the need for Masa to be in good enough shape to withstand the rigors of an MLB season, so he reached the same broad conclusion. I know I've heard pro players say again and again that they hugely underestimated the amount of hard work it takes to excel in MLB.
Simple explanation:
We know that every person needs a certain amount of sleep to function optimally, and we know that the brain gives you leeway. You can get by with less sleep than is optimal with no short-term effects. Ideally, you catch up on that sleep at some point, and it will have no long-term effects.
Two things will reduce your leeway: chronic sleep deprivation, and extra energy expenditure.There's a strong evolutionary rationale for the change in leeway to happen as a discrete jump rather than gradual, and we do experience that.
The numbers I are posted are fairly eye-opening. I still think he hit a point where he began needing more sleep, more than he could sometimes get. That pretty much explains things.
What I want to do at some point in this winter is do a five-game running xwOBA relative to team. And maybe that's just for starters.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Oct 8, 2023 13:15:27 GMT -5
Like many frequent flyers on this board I can attest to the myriad difficulties of flying outside time zones; and to the relative ease of flying and doing business within a time zone, which is what Masa enjoyed in Japan.
There is no doubt that Masataka Yoshida and his sleep patterns suffered in multiple ways from vastly increased and continuous travel. Also consider his MVP performance in the WBC, lack of ST, and 162 game grind with no weekly day off.
Contributors to this new grind included new country, language, customs, food, teammates, non-supportive media, and playing the OF (physical and emotional energy expenditure) far more than in the past several years. Plus the dislocation of missing family, friends, places. Being an old “rookie” with so much expected of him at such expense.
It is fortunate the Sox don’t have to face the insult and pain of contemporary commercial air travel, but the the tough weird schedule likely offset that comfort.
All of this and more contributed to a 2nd half falling off. MLB can not replicate Nippon League travel, schedule or home cooking, but for 2024 a traditional ST, knowing the league as a “sophomore”, understanding and preparing for “the grind”, some cultural adaptation, a growing network of friends, and more will make Yoshida and the Boston media happy campers.
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Post by incandenza on Oct 8, 2023 13:49:51 GMT -5
Other than the cultural adjustment, did Yoshida have to go through anything worse than what the typical MLB rookie goes through? They don't really cross time zones in the minor leagues, and they play somewhat shorter seasons. Yoshida had to make *less* of an adjustment in terms of the professional athlete lifestyle in a lot of ways than those rookies do.
None of this is to say he didn't hit a wall for whatever reason - it very much looked to me like he did. Somewhere around the end of July he just became a different kind of hitter. I'm just not so sure it follows naturally from his experience as a Japanese player adjusting to MLB or time zone travel or whatever. It wouldn't surprise me, for instance, if he were just battling some sort of injury.
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Post by freddysthefuture2003 on Oct 9, 2023 9:19:41 GMT -5
Other than the cultural adjustment, did Yoshida have to go through anything worse than what the typical MLB rookie goes through? They don't really cross time zones in the minor leagues, and they play somewhat shorter seasons. Yoshida had to make *less* of an adjustment in terms of the professional athlete lifestyle in a lot of ways than those rookies do. None of this is to say he didn't hit a wall for whatever reason - it very much looked to me like he did. Somewhere around the end of July he just became a different kind of hitter. I'm just not so sure it follows naturally from his experience as a Japanese player adjusting to MLB or time zone travel or whatever. It wouldn't surprise me, for instance, if he were just battling some sort of injury. Not many rookies have wives and children that they don't get to see for over 6 months
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Post by pappyman99 on Oct 9, 2023 9:22:19 GMT -5
I think this was just a bad signing, especially given the poor roster fit on top of not really having a defensive position and not quite having the bat for a DH
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Post by greenmonster on Oct 9, 2023 9:30:53 GMT -5
Apologies if this has already been addressed previously. Is there any evidence to suggest the "hitting a wall" point was actually brought on by the coaches intentionally altering his swing in an effort to generate more power and the unintended result was 4-3?
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Post by soxfanatic on Oct 9, 2023 11:32:29 GMT -5
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Post by incandenza on Oct 9, 2023 11:40:39 GMT -5
Ha... weren't people pointing out during the season that the translator's skills seemed... questionable during interviews with Yoshida?
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Oct 9, 2023 11:43:13 GMT -5
Makes perfect sense. Masa’s interviews never seemed quite right, clean, concise, accurate. If you have ever relied on a translator in non-English speaking countries, a poor communicator can leave you feeling pretty helpless and isolated. Yet another contributing factor to hitting the wall??
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Post by manfred on Oct 9, 2023 11:45:56 GMT -5
Makes perfect sense. Masa’s interviews never seemed quite right, clean, concise, accurate. If you have ever relied on a translator in non-English speaking countries, a poor communicator can leave you feeling pretty helpless and isolated. Yet another contributing factor to hitting the wall?? Why would the effect worsen, though? I’d think it’d either be constant or get better (surely he learned a few key phrases).
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Oct 9, 2023 12:07:21 GMT -5
Didn’t mention worsened. Seemed off from the start. The translator didn’t seem able to express context clearly. Perhaps perceived difficulties with coaches or teammates were translation based. That would exacerbate issues on so many levels.
Translators are, and need to be, specific to the field. An expert medical translator might fail miserably in fields of law, business, architecture, etc. This is in addition to understanding culture, both general and specific to the region. Fubars are not uncommon.
Masa is a notoriously hard worker but if complex instructions or dialogue were even marginally misinterpreted the end results could be awful. Just theorizing here, but from an extensive base.
Add: knowing a few phrases in any language can provide humor and often good feelings towards those who use them (accents, not quite accurate wording, etc.) but are not reliable ways to communicate complexities. Baseball for all its simplicity is, in the MLB, complex in every detail, right?
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Post by manfred on Oct 9, 2023 12:39:00 GMT -5
Didn’t mention worsened. Seemed off from the start. The translator didn’t seem able to express context clearly. Perhaps perceived difficulties with coaches or teammates were translation based. That would exacerbate issues on so many levels. Translators are, and need to be, specific to the field. An expert medical translator might fail miserably in fields of law, business, architecture, etc. This is in addition to understanding culture, both general and specific to the region. Fubars are not uncommon. Masa is a notoriously hard worker but if complex instructions or dialogue were even marginally misinterpreted the end results could be awful. Just theorizing here, but from an extensive base. Add: knowing a few phrases in any language can provide humor and often good feelings towards those who use them (accents, not quite accurate wording, etc.) but are not reliable ways to communicate complexities. Baseball for all its simplicity is, in the MLB, complex in every detail, right? My question was how this would be part of hitting a wall, since it would be a consistent issue… or if anything something that should be getting better over time.
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Post by taiwansox on Oct 9, 2023 12:53:32 GMT -5
Ha... weren't people pointing out during the season that the translator's skills seemed... questionable during interviews with Yoshida? Yeah I was one of those people who posted during the press conference, his translating was brutal lol. It also didn’t get better through the season…
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Post by chaimtime on Oct 9, 2023 13:40:23 GMT -5
Didn’t mention worsened. Seemed off from the start. The translator didn’t seem able to express context clearly. Perhaps perceived difficulties with coaches or teammates were translation based. That would exacerbate issues on so many levels. Translators are, and need to be, specific to the field. An expert medical translator might fail miserably in fields of law, business, architecture, etc. This is in addition to understanding culture, both general and specific to the region. Fubars are not uncommon. Masa is a notoriously hard worker but if complex instructions or dialogue were even marginally misinterpreted the end results could be awful. Just theorizing here, but from an extensive base. Add: knowing a few phrases in any language can provide humor and often good feelings towards those who use them (accents, not quite accurate wording, etc.) but are not reliable ways to communicate complexities. Baseball for all its simplicity is, in the MLB, complex in every detail, right? My question was how this would be part of hitting a wall, since it would be a consistent issue… or if anything something that should be getting better over time. If the interpreter is failing to properly communicate advice the team is trying to give him about adjusting to MLB life/defensive positioning/swing tweaks/whatever else you can think of, wouldn't that make it harder to mitigate any of those negative effects?
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Oct 9, 2023 13:55:05 GMT -5
Other than the cultural adjustment, did Yoshida have to go through anything worse than what the typical MLB rookie goes through? They don't really cross time zones in the minor leagues, and they play somewhat shorter seasons. Yoshida had to make *less* of an adjustment in terms of the professional athlete lifestyle in a lot of ways than those rookies do. None of this is to say he didn't hit a wall for whatever reason - it very much looked to me like he did. Somewhere around the end of July he just became a different kind of hitter. I'm just not so sure it follows naturally from his experience as a Japanese player adjusting to MLB or time zone travel or whatever. It wouldn't surprise me, for instance, if he were just battling some sort of injury. i will most likely get some pushback here, and it isn't a knock on his effort, but guys that aren't as big may have problems going through a whole season. There is always exceptions, but they are usually more lithe and he is kind of thick. Plus, he isn't that young, comparatively. Also, he is facing the best pitchers in the world night in and night out, and they make adjustments. I think there is a whole host of reasons that are probably more responsible for the drop off, before i start with the translator thing. If that helps in any way, all for it. Gonna need it, because that was a pretty ugly first season, beginning to end.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Oct 9, 2023 16:10:02 GMT -5
Ehhh, not really beginning to end. First half he was being considered rookie of the year and all star candidate. Then the wall, which wasn’t even sturdy at times
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Oct 9, 2023 21:02:23 GMT -5
Ehhh, not really beginning to end. First half he was being considered rookie of the year and all star candidate. Then the wall, which wasn’t even sturdy at times I went back and checked the game logs. He was awful the first few weeks of the season and had a nice 6-7 week run with the bat, that led to his highwater mark about the first week of June. Then began, the steady decline to his season ending numbers. To each his own, don't mind hearing your response, but for 19 million, I stand by the characterization. Pretty bad season for him, from start to finish. Plus he only played 140 games. Hope for much better next year and i think we will probably get it. Plus, i will never forget him getting caught at 3rd in that ridiculous 9-3-5 triple play. That alone pollutes my opinion of his season.
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Post by incandenza on Oct 9, 2023 21:13:37 GMT -5
Ehhh, not really beginning to end. First half he was being considered rookie of the year and all star candidate. Then the wall, which wasn’t even sturdy at times I went back and checked the game logs. He was awful the first few weeks of the season and had a nice 6-7 week run with the bat, that led to his highwater mark about the first week of June. Then began, the steady decline to his season ending numbers. To each his own, don't mind hearing your response, but for 19 million, I stand by the characterization. Pretty bad season for him, from start to finish. Plus he only played 140 games. Hope for much better next year and i think we will probably get it. Plus, i will never forget him getting caught at 3rd in that ridiculous 9-3-5 triple play. That alone pollutes my opinion of his season. Hmm, looks like his high water mark may have been June 4th, when he was at a 144 wRC+ (.318/.396/.505). But he had a 133 wRC+ (.322/.361/.507) from June 5th through July 25th. That is still pretty great production for a $19 million hitter. It was only in his final 200 PAs that he stunk (.233/.255/.337, 52 wRC+).
200 PAs is over a third of his season, so it's not like it was just a little slump. But he was definitely a good hitter almost til the end of July.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Oct 9, 2023 21:40:48 GMT -5
I went back and checked the game logs. He was awful the first few weeks of the season and had a nice 6-7 week run with the bat, that led to his highwater mark about the first week of June. Then began, the steady decline to his season ending numbers. To each his own, don't mind hearing your response, but for 19 million, I stand by the characterization. Pretty bad season for him, from start to finish. Plus he only played 140 games. Hope for much better next year and i think we will probably get it. Plus, i will never forget him getting caught at 3rd in that ridiculous 9-3-5 triple play. That alone pollutes my opinion of his season. Hmm, looks like his high water mark may have been June 4th, when he was at a 144 wRC+ (.318/.396/.505). But he had a 133 wRC+ (.322/.361/.507) from June 5th through July 25th. That is still pretty great production for a $19 million hitter. It was only in his final 200 PAs that he stunk (.233/.255/.337, 52 wRC+).
200 PAs is over a third of his season, so it's not like it was just a little slump. But he was definitely a good hitter almost til the end of July.
maybe my view is a bit gratuitous, i will give you that. Just didn't feel that great watching him hit all year, noting your exceptions. And the baserunning and defense exacerbated by overall view.
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mobaz
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Post by mobaz on Oct 10, 2023 9:52:46 GMT -5
Hmm, looks like his high water mark may have been June 4th, when he was at a 144 wRC+ (.318/.396/.505). But he had a 133 wRC+ (.322/.361/.507) from June 5th through July 25th. That is still pretty great production for a $19 million hitter. It was only in his final 200 PAs that he stunk (.233/.255/.337, 52 wRC+).
200 PAs is over a third of his season, so it's not like it was just a little slump. But he was definitely a good hitter almost til the end of July.
maybe my view is a bit gratuitous, i will give you that. Just didn't feel that great watching him hit all year, noting your exceptions. And the baserunning and defense exacerbated by overall view. I gotta disagree. I remember being really excited for his at-bats for long stretches in May and June, since he always seemed to swing at strikes and hit it where they ain't. He was moving runners, taking walks, had some double/lite HR power, driving runs. We had the whole macho man dumbell thing that he sparked. I like to think that's who he is.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Oct 10, 2023 12:03:06 GMT -5
He's got serious bat-to-ball skills. Just my opinion, but I think he wore down physically, and mentally also. It's a different country, with many more games to play and vastly more travel time to play them. Is there any way to get him reconnected during the season to his family?
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Post by bcsox on Oct 10, 2023 20:16:19 GMT -5
He was being lauded for his ball to bat skills most of the season, but it seemed like he was striking out at an alarming rate in the second half of the season in comparison to the first half.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Oct 11, 2023 9:03:50 GMT -5
He was being lauded for his ball to bat skills most of the season, but it seemed like he was striking out at an alarming rate in the second half of the season in comparison to the first half. Still 86th percentile whiff and 93rd percentile K, but both trended down obviously. I can’t believe how little he walked after May. He definitely needs to walk more. 17th percentile BB% is pathetic for his reputation. Chase less, walk more, swing at better pitches to hit, roll over on less grounders to 2B. I think it’s easy to blame fatigue and first year in the league, and you can find promising data points, but his odds of being a successful LF/DH next year are much closer to 50% than 100% IMO. Really discouraging second half and if you have to work as hard as people have in this thread to sugarcoat it, then there’s clearly an issue/risk here.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 11, 2023 9:29:41 GMT -5
He was being lauded for his ball to bat skills most of the season, but it seemed like he was striking out at an alarming rate in the second half of the season in comparison to the first half. Still 86th percentile whiff and 93rd percentile K, but both trended down obviously. I can’t believe how little he walked after May. He definitely needs to walk more. 17th percentile BB% is pathetic for his reputation. Chase less, walk more, swing at better pitches to hit, roll over on less grounders to 2B. I think it’s easy to blame fatigue and first year in the league, and you can find promising data points, but his odds of being a successful LF/DH next year are much closer to 50% than 100% IMO. Really discouraging second half and if you have to work as hard as people have in this thread to sugarcoat it, then there’s clearly an issue/risk here. I mean, I don't know that looking deeper than just assuming doom is "working hard to sugarcoat it." His high water dark before cratering was July 25. At that point, 101 games into the season (62% of the way in), he was hitting .320/.382/.506. The rest of the way he hit .233/.255/.337. That stretch begins with an 0-for-18. He then kind of pulls it together in terms of getting hits, but as mentioned, wasn't walking, hitting .289/.296/.423 in his next 14 games. OBP isn't good, but he was hitting, and with a .317 BABIP that suggests it wasn't lucky. The rest of the way he has short stretches where he pulls it together and looks like he might kick out, but other, longer stretches in which he's nothing (e.g., .214/.250/.262 from 8/19-9/1 over 11 games, .118/.143/.118 from 9/5-9/17 in 9 games). The clear thing is he stops walking and his power craters. He definitely was striking out more too. 19 K in his last 75 PA (25%) after 62 in his first 505 (12%). I don't think it's nuts to suggest that in his first year in the US, he probably wore down. His bat looked slower. Looking at the game log you see pieces of his offensive game slowly disappear. 23 BB in his first 221 PA (10%), 11 in his last 359 (3%). We'll see in 2024 how much of it is the league catching up to him. I think we can all agree he's no sure thing, but I'm entering the year planning on giving him starter playing time if I'm in charge. On one hand, you can't reasonably say he's a sure thing. On the other, to ignore what he did in the first 2/3 of the season is to be unreasonably pessimistic.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Oct 11, 2023 10:05:13 GMT -5
Still 86th percentile whiff and 93rd percentile K, but both trended down obviously. I can’t believe how little he walked after May. He definitely needs to walk more. 17th percentile BB% is pathetic for his reputation. Chase less, walk more, swing at better pitches to hit, roll over on less grounders to 2B. I think it’s easy to blame fatigue and first year in the league, and you can find promising data points, but his odds of being a successful LF/DH next year are much closer to 50% than 100% IMO. Really discouraging second half and if you have to work as hard as people have in this thread to sugarcoat it, then there’s clearly an issue/risk here. I mean, I don't know that looking deeper than just assuming doom is "working hard to sugarcoat it." His high water dark before cratering was July 25. At that point, 101 games into the season (62% of the way in), he was hitting .320/.382/.506. The rest of the way he hit .233/.255/.337. That stretch begins with an 0-for-18. He then kind of pulls it together in terms of getting hits, but as mentioned, wasn't walking, hitting .289/.296/.423 in his next 14 games. OBP isn't good, but he was hitting, and with a .317 BABIP that suggests it wasn't lucky. The rest of the way he has short stretches where he pulls it together and looks like he might kick out, but other, longer stretches in which he's nothing (e.g., .214/.250/.262 from 8/19-9/1 over 11 games, .118/.143/.118 from 9/5-9/17 in 9 games). The clear thing is he stops walking and his power craters. He definitely was striking out more too. 19 K in his last 75 PA (25%) after 62 in his first 505 (12%). I don't think it's nuts to suggest that in his first year in the US, he probably wore down. His bat looked slower. Looking at the game log you see pieces of his offensive game slowly disappear. 23 BB in his first 221 PA (10%), 11 in his last 359 (3%). We'll see in 2024 how much of it is the league catching up to him. I think we can all agree he's no sure thing, but I'm entering the year planning on giving him starter playing time if I'm in charge. On one hand, you can't reasonably say he's a sure thing. On the other, to ignore what he did in the first 2/3 of the season is to be unreasonably pessimistic. I would certainly consider him a starter heading into next year and don’t think this is a doom and gloom situation, but we have Eric playing doctor defending his rough stretch which I would call sugarcoating it.
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