Red Sox 2023 Season Preview

Meet The New Guys - Each And Every One Of Them

Spring Training is officially underway. Let’s meet the newest members of the 2023 Red Sox.

By Dan Secatore@DanSecatore Updated Feb 24, 2023, 10:56am EST

Masataka Yoshida Boston Red Sox Press Conference

Baseball players aren’t just pixels on a screen. Every day from April through October, they are a part of our lives. And over the course of 162 games, we get a pretty interesting idea of each of their personalities, if not the complete picture. We learn what makes them laugh and which teammates they laugh with. We see what makes them great. We see what they struggle with — and we see how they deal (or don’t deal) with those struggles.

The 2023 Red Sox will feature many new faces, some of whom we don’t even know about yet. Ultimately, what they do on the field, and in the dugout, and in the streets of Boston, and on Instagram and Twitter, will make up the story of the 2023 season. But we don’t know what that story is yet.

As we wait for that story to unfold, consider this a prelude. Here’s an introduction to the 14 new faces likest to make the biggest impact on the Red Sox over the next eight months.

Masataka Yoshida

Who Is He And Where Did He Come From?

He’s Masataka Yoshida, and the Red Sox just signed him to a 5-year, $90 million deal, on top of a $15.4 million posting fee paid to the Orix Buffalos (Ichiro’s old team, BTW, though at the time he played there, they went by the much cooler name of the Orix Blue Wave). He’s been a star in Japan and, for whatever it’s worth, he freaking idolizes Bryce Harper. Like, it’s not enough for him to just wear Harper’s #34, he has to go and do stuff like this:

What Position Does He Play?

He’s a left fielder, and, defensively speaking, he’s not known as a particularly good one. But it’s worth noting that, per Defensive Runs Saved, he was graded as above average going forward, but below average going back, so playing him in front of the Monster seems like it could optimize his defensive potential.

Is He Any Good?

Well, the first thing to know about him is that he is a plate discipline God. He has not put up an OBP under .400 since his rookie season. He also has elite contact skills, as, over the past two seasons, he’s struck out just 68 times. For reference, the Major League hitter with the fewest strikeouts over the last two seasons is Luis Arraez with 91 (though there’s a caveat here, in that the Japanese season is slightly shorter than its MLB equivalent; Arraez played an additional 36 games over those 2 years). He’s not a massive power hitter (he’s never hit 30 home runs in a season), but he has enough power complementing his on-base skills that he’s led the Pacific League in OPS each of the past two seasons. What’s more, he put those numbers up while reportedly being shifted quite a bit, which is less common in Japan than it has been in recent years in the States and, of course, will be banned next season.

Here’s some praise from former teammate Adam Jones that probably won’t lead to anyone overreacting at all:

I say he’s like the Japanese Juan Soto. He can hit the ball to all fields, all speeds. Like Juan Soto, he hits everything — and walks. He doesn’t swing out of the zone.

Okay! Sounds pretty good!

But here’s the thing, the ultimately unsatisfying answer to the question of “is he any good” is: we don’t know. Take the internet time machine back 12 months and you’ll find all sorts of praise about Seiya Suzuki that he hasn’t lived up to yet. Take it back even further and you’ll find countless people convinced that Ichiro would never make it in the big leagues. When it comes to hitters making the transition from NPB to MLB, we just don’t know.

The popular response to question of “how good is NPB” is to say that it’s somewhere between AAA and the big leagues, but that’s a reductive answer. There was no one in AAA who was good as Yu Darvish was before he came over, and the same was true with Hideki Matsui, and, certainly, Shohei Ohtani. The fact is that NPB contains some of the absolute best baseball players in the world, while simultaneously containing players who couldn’t make a big league roster. We don’t yet know where on that spectrum Yoshida falls, and we likely won’t know for a while.

Uncertainly is frustrating, and we don’t like it because it forces us to confront the reality that we have less control over the universe and our place in it than we like to imagine. But sorry, that’s just what comes along with being a human on planet Earth.

Show Me A Cool Highlight

It doesn’t get any cooler than a walk-off home run in the championship series, does it?

Holy s*** this is blowing up

He also walked off Game 5 of the Japan Series this year pic.twitter.com/X41vrvXSlt
— Gaijin Baseball/外国人野球 (@GaijinBaseball) October 31, 2022

What’s He Doing In His Picture Up There?

Sternly reminding his bat that he doesn’t care how cool it looks, if it doesn’t get some damn hits soon, it’s going in the fireplace.

What’s His Role On the 2023 Red Sox?

He’s probably going to start the season leading off and playing left field, though he’s likely to see a lot of time at DH, as well. What this means for Alex Verdugo remains to be seen.

Corey Kluber

Who is he and where did he come from?

He’s Corey Kluber, a former Cy Young-winner from Birmingham, Alabama who, for some completely incomprehensible reason, spends his winters in Winchester, Massachusetts (ohhhh, how fancy!)

The Sox signed him to a one-year, $10 million deal with a team option for a second year.

What position does he play?

He’s a pitcher, which you should have figured out from the “former Cy Young-Winner” thing.

Is he any good?

He was outstanding once (again, the Cy Young thing); an elite, big-game pitcher who never, ever walked anyone. His 2017 season was one of the single best seasons of the 21st century. That year, he led the league in pitching WAR, WPA, wins, ERA, ERA+, shutouts, strikeout-to-walk ratio, hits-per-nine, walks-per-nine and, obviously, WHIP, while finishing second in strikeouts-per-nine and fourth in innings pitched.

But, if you happen to own a calendar (oh, look at you, fancy-pants, you must live in Winchester!), you’ll note that that was six years ago. He started just eight games in the 2019 and 2020 seasons combined, thanks to a broken arm and a shoulder injury (though he is not a Tommy John recipient, as many people assume). He’ll be 37-years-old next April, and has lost a full four miles-per-hour on his fastball.

The good news is that he was fully healthy last season and is still an elite control guy, having issued just 21 walks in 31 starts for the Tampa Bay Rays. The bad news is he was mediocre overall, finishing the year with a 4.34 ERA. Part of his mediocrity was due to bad luck, as his FIP was nearly a full run lower, but it was also partly due to the fact that he got absolutely smoked by the AL East:

Facing the Yankees, Orioles, and Blue Jays last season, Kluber had a 5.03 ERA with 43 strikeouts, 14 walks, and 4 HR allowed in 59 innings.
— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) December 28, 2022

So, uhh, yikes.

Show me a cool highlight.

Hey! He threw a no-hitter! And not all that long ago!

What’s he doing in his picture up there?

Brushing his shoulder off after some punks from Woburn called it “Wimpchester.”

What’s his role on the 2023 Red Sox?

He’ll be in the rotation, at least to start the year.

Adam Duvall

Who is he and where did he come from?

He’s Adam Duvall, Kentucky-born power hitter. The Red Sox signed him to a one-year, $7 million deal off the free agent scrap heap. Duvall has spent the bulk of his career with the Reds and the Braves, with short stints with the Giants and Marlins sprinkled in.

What position does he play?

What an interesting question! For almost his entire career, Duvall has been a corner outfielder, playing the majority of his innings in left. Given that he’s entering his age-34 season, it would seem unlikely that he would move up the defensive spectrum to centerfield at this point in his career, right?

And yet, it seems like that might be exactly what happens in 2023.

As the Red Sox roster currently stands, Kiké Hernandez will be forced to move from centerfield to shortstop, in order to cover for the ailing Trevor Story. Neither of the Red Sox two presumptive corner outfielder starters — Alex Verdugo and Masataka Yoshida — have the defensive chops to cover center field (and frankly, it’s not clear whether either one of them is good enough to play Fenway’s expansive right field, either.) Barring a trade, this would leave Duvall as the opening day center fielder.

Duvall has made 68 starts in centerfield over the course of his career, with the vast majority of those (43) coming just last year. He did grade out as a good center fielder, finishing the 2022 season with 4 outs above average at the position (for reference, Trent Grisham led all center fielders last season with 17 OAA, which he compiled over the course of 124 starts compared to Duvall’s 43). While defensive metrics should never be taken as gospel — especially over small sample sizes — these numbers track with Duvall’s career-long reputation as an above average outfielder, who has a strong arm and gets good jumps on the ball.

And for what it’s worth, Duvall is also on record as saying he loves playing center, though he admitted that it’s tougher on the legs, and there was some speculation that it may have hurt his offense last year (more on that below).

Is he any good?

Another interesting question! For most of his career, Duvall has been a big home run hitter, albeit one with a limited offensive profile due to low batting averages and on-base percentages (his career slash line is .230/.289/.465.) He’s topped 30 homers 3 times, was an All-Star in 2016, and led both the World Champion Braves and the entire National League in RBI as recently as 2021.

However, his power has been trending down for three years in a row leading to 2022, which was one of the worst years of his career. He had an absolutely brutal start to the season, hitting .186/.251/.266 with only 2 home runs over the first 53 games of 2022. But don’t worry! He turned things around in impressive fashion, hitting .255/.317/.618 with a whopping 10 homer over the subsequent 34 games, before suffering a season-ending wrist injury sustained while crashing into the outfield wall.

In light of the discussion about his outfield defense, though, what is particularly interesting about last season’s turn-around is that it happened shortly after he moved out of center field and back to the corners.

What’s he doing in his picture up there?

Awkwardly waiting for laughter after telling the press “My name is Adam Duvall, but after moving to center field for the Boston Red Sox, they’re going to call me . . . Adam Can-Do-It-All.”

Show me a cool highlight.

This dude once hit a grand slam in the first inning of a World Series game. I’m not going to say it doesn’t get cooler than that (next time, try waiting 8 more innings, Adam) but that’s pretty damn cool.

What’s his role on the 2023 Red Sox?

We’ll see! He’s going to start the season somewhere in the outfield. Whether that’s centerfield or one of the corners will be determined by additional personnel moves that may or may not come.

Justin Turner

Who is he and where did he come from?

He’s Justin Turner, two-time All-Star, ginger beard god, and spreader of COVID. The Red Sox signed him to a one-year contract that pays $8.3 million, with a player option for a second year at $13.4 million

What position does he play?

Well, that’s an interesting question. For most of his career, he’s been a third baseman. But that position is currently filled by a young, power-hitting All-Star (for now, anyway). And last year, Turner played nearly as many games as the Dodgers’ DH as he did as their third baseman. Further, there’s been some idle internet speculation that he could provide some cover at second in the event that Trevor Story starts the year as the full-time shortstop. But that seems like a stretch given that Turner hasn’t played meaningful innings at second base since the first Obama administration, and hasn’t played there at all since 2015. He’s also 38-years-old (more on that below), with all of the physical frailties that come therewith. So in all likelihood, he’s now a DH.

Is he any good?

Well, did you think JD Martinez was good? Because in Justin Turner, the Red Sox have basically acquired JD Martinez, except one who makes more contact and can fill-in competently at the corner infield spots. Turner is sitting on 10 consecutive seasons with an OPS+ above 100. But, like Martinez, his days as an elite bat are behind him. He hit just 13 home runs last year, with his worst slugging percentage in 8 years (.438) and lowest OBP in 5 (.350).

He also looked completely and totally washed for the first three months of 2022, when he slashed just .227/.298/.375 over 70 games. The flip side of that, though, is that he put together a vintage, All-Star caliber second half to balance things out: .340/.412/.514 with 7 homers and 16 doubles in 58 games.

So which Justin Turner will we see next year? It’s impossible to know for sure, but what we do know, is that he’s thirty-freaking-eight years old. Amongst qualified hitters last season, he was the third-oldest position player in all of baseball, behind only Nelson Cruz and Yuli Gurriel. So while it’s possible that he puts up another competent season at the plate with an OBP that plays towards the top end of the lineup and a decent amount of thump, it’s equally possible he falls a sleep in an awkward position on the couch and then loses full range of motion in his neck for the next six weeks — that’s your late-thirties, folks.

Show me a cool highlight.

You’ve probably seen plenty of Justin Turner through the years (he’s played a whopping 86 postseason gams in his career), so here he is on a late night talk show instead. I can’t even think of the last active Red Sox player who was a late-night show (it had be Ortiz, no?) so look at that, he’s bringing something new already.

What’s he doing in his picture up there?

Screaming in pain after stepping on a lego that one of his teammates’ kids left on the field.

What’s his role on the 2023 Red Sox?

He’ll play DH, mostly, but also spell Devers at third and step in at first if Triston Casas continues to struggle against lefties.