The Dodgers have acquired infielder Yoshi Tsutsugo from the Rays in exchange for cash considerations or a player to be named later. Infielder Edwin Rios was moved to the 60-day injured list to create roster space for Tsutsugo.
The Rays designated Tsutsugo for assignment last Tuesday, and today’s trade closes the book on an overall disappointing 18-month tenure for Tsutsugo in Tampa Bay. Signed to a two-year, $12MM free agent deal in the 2019-20 offseason, Tsutsugo hit .197/.314/.395 over 185 plate appearances last season, and had only two hits over 16 PA during Tampa’s postseason run. The 29-year-old followed that rookie season up with a rough .167/.244/.218 slash line in 87 PA this season, which prompted the Rays to send Tsutsugo to the DFA wire.
Tsutsugo is still owed roughly $5.49MM of his original $7MM salary for the 2021 season, and according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (via Twitter), the Dodgers will cover slightly more than $430K — the prorated share of the minimum salary. This means the Rays will eat the roughly $5MM remaining of Tsutsugo’s salary, making his contract a fairly costly mistake considering the team’s low spending habts.
After years of big numbers with NPB’s Yokohama DeNA BayStars, Tsutsugo drew plenty of attention when he was posted by the BayStars in the winter of 2019-20. The Dodgers weren’t one of the teams known to have interest in Tsutsugo’s services, but their interest could have been piqued given their current needs.
Tsutsugo has played third base, first base, and left field for Tampa Bay, so he fits the Dodgers’ preferred model as a multi-position player (the team’s signing of Albert Pujols notwithstanding). While L.A. already has a number of left-handed hitting options, Tsutsugo is something of a more experienced option due to his time in Japan, even if he has relatively little time in Major League Baseball. Tsutsugo could be seen as something of a straight replacement for Rios, another lefty bat with corner infield and corner outfield experience. Rios will miss the remainder of the season due to surgery on his right shoulder.
Rays: Send us cash.
Somehow they will get a decent player back and make him into a stud lol
Cash that they’ll never spend
I know they lost Pollock to injury and Luke Raley & DJ Peters are not dependable for OF. But Tsutsugo and his 7M contract? Belli and Mckinstry are rehabbing probably next week can join OKC for rehab assignment. This movement are weird
Would assume rays will cover most of the salary
TB pays the rest of the contract minus MLB minimum
Why would the Rays trade him to still pay the salary? That’s the whole point of getting rid of him.. Dodgers probably don’t have to give up anything for him.. In fact, I bet a prospect is attached to Tsutsugo just to get that money off the books.
Since he was DFA’d they have to pay him.
The Rays have paid for plenty of players not to play for them over the years. The team is also in a major 40 man roster crunch and just wants him gone.
Probably a salary cap manipulation, they sent cash. Something in the realm of his entire contract. The minimum is counted for cap luxury tax purposes and the cash goes to the rays to offset the salary
No, when a player is DFA’d, the team is only responsible for the remaining salary if he goes unclaimed. Salary relief can be negotiated in a trade.
“
Why would the Rays trade him to still pay the salary? That’s the whole point of getting rid of him.. “
really? DFA guy gets nothing in return when released. At least they’ll get a flyer on some A ball guy or some cash back
There is no salary cap in baseball.
Baseball contracts are guaranteed. He still gets paid even though he was DFA’d
Yeah, but it sounds like he was traded before clearing waivers. Dodgers could have signed him for MLB minimum period if he’d cleared.
Tsutsugo was basically brought in to replace Rios as a LH backup to Turner at 3B with the added caveat that he can play the corner OF as well. Pujols makes no sense in that has no versatility whatsoever and at this point can barely play 1B. Lux is starting to hit so not sure how often Muncy will play 2B and there are not a lot of interleague games for Albert to DH in. I would imagine Raley, Peters, and Neuse are all ticketed for AAA with the new additions and players set to return
This Pujols signing comes off as being like revenge porn on his part of something. He said, or the Haloes said he said, and he didn’t deny, that he wanted to play regularly and believed he could play 1B every day.
So, in reality, he’ll ride the pine just as much, but he goes crosstown to do that. socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2021/05/pujols-to-dodg…
First pujols now him, I’m confused
Are you sick of watching Peters, Raley and Neuse? Well so was Friedman.
Wait until you see yoshi
A guy putting up -0.5 WAR isn’t much of an improvement over any of those mentioned.
Gotta give him a “change of league” benefit of the doubt. He might play better in the NL for whatever reason.
Why do you have to give him that benefit? Especially with how short his time in the AL was.
You give him a chance because his time and ab’s were short in the AL. He put up great numbers in Japan and have to hope he figures it out here. It’s a low risk/high reward move that probably won’t pan out but it does make more sense than signing Pujols.
That reply doesn’t answer the question. You just reiterated the same nonsense the original poster did.
Oh man you nailed it, it pains me to watch them play
This Pujols signing comes off as being like revenge on his part of something. He said, or the Haloes said he said, and he didn’t deny, that he wanted to play regularly and believed he could play 1B every day. (Deleting one word to get out of MLBTR’s moderation queue.)
So, in reality, he’ll ride the pine just as much, but he goes crosstown to do that. socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2021/05/pujols-to-dodg…
Rays win again
Now, this dude I could see being great for the Dodgers. He’s plenty young enough, and he has shown to be a good hitter in the past. Nice little reclamation project. Good move.
Not trying to play “I told you so” but why not just trade for this guy and ignore Albert?
Pujols is toast
With how poorly this team is hitting, it’s not an outrageous thought to get two bats.
No it wouldn’t be, but neither of these players are that.
Since coming to America hasn’t hit whatsoever so I’m not sure when he was a good hitter in the past?? He’s literally been absolutely awful
that tax hit is gonna be tres, TRES grande.
Less than $1M to add Pujols & Yoshi. Not a bad flier by Friedman at all, even if it costs them and additional $300K – $400K CBT surcharge
He’s not BigAl Avila or the other guy.
Does it really cost that much though? Because they had to pay the guys they send back to AAA the major league salary for the games they played in LA?
So the net cost is just the AAA salaries, which is negligible.
I knew this was where he’d end up.
Pujols too.
Or not.
But, for real. Do the Dodgers have an 80 man roster or something? How the hell do they have room to add not just one, but two dubious hitters on the same day?
They must be hit harder with injuries than I’d thought. Apologies for my AL centric fandom.
honestly felt like the Mets had an endless 40 man in the offseason
Felt a little crowded there too.
But a bunch of those were MiLB deals. But these are both 40 man spots.
All those who predicted the Dodgers 1B in 2021 would be a platoon of Albert and Yoshi, please send me advice on what to do with my bitcoins…..
Hold.
I did not.
But that’s an easy question to answer: hold ’em.
Yoshi can play third and corner OF so he’s not just a first basemen.
Obviously you’ve never seen Yoshi play defense. Miggy Cabrera CAN play SS too.
Max Muncy still exists
Trade the bitcoins in for silver. There will be a big demand for silver in LA for all of silver slugger awards they’ll need to hand out!
Dodgers can fix him like they did with Turner, Muncy, Kike and Taylor.
Do they still have that guy? The exMarine topgun phycologist?
As a Tiger fan I can say there’s a reason why the Dodgers are great……..
They didn’t hire BigAl and Tommy Lasorda is a Dodger.
I love these absolutely idiotic comments
What exactly is idiotic about either of those two statements? Sounds like you might be the idiotic one.
my guessing is that Pujols and Yoshi are using the roster spots of the guys on the injury list. i dont know..
Dodgers cornering the market on dead bats.
They could do surprisingly well in L.A. as bench bats
Pujols is Mr Double Play at this point in his career. He is a player that turns doubles into singles and usually doesnt run out groundballs.
Dumpsta Divin Friedman
That’s how he got Muncy, and he flipped a piece of garbage to the Mariners for Taylor. Heck, half the BP last year were “projects” and how did that work out? Ya, I’m kind of excited to see what comes of these moves.
Goodbye Pujols, we hardly knew you.
Tsutsugo is a low risk-high upside move, If the change of scenery gets him going Friedman will look like a genius. If he bombs, they cut him away like cancer and it’s all good.
Albert is something completely different. Much more of a no-win flavor in this deal. Potential for management to look like Angels management, meaning a bunch of jerks, if he doesnt produce enough to keep his roster spot.
Anyone paying attention knows the angels ownership doesn’t look like a bunch of jerks for how Pujols was handled. They played him till they had an in-your-face replacement. Then they cut him so he could get more ABs elsewhere
What else you want from them?
This guy was the Fred mcgriff of japan. You would think he would of turned in at least half of the numbers he had in Japan. Inconsistent playing time and the bubble probably not good for him. Which is not likely to change in LA unless he starts off hot. Go Angels!
Did you hear about the next player that was DFA’d….oh nevermind, the Dodgers signed him.
Seriously, what is their plan here? They are grabbing anything with a pulse in the last week.
The roster was hit by injuries before Rios, Pollock and Seager have all gone down in the last week
The system was quickly drying up with reasonable options. And honestly, the options they were already using were nothing spectacular. The OF and now corner IF has been hit repeatedly with injuries. When one of the hurt guys is a also a multi position super sub, that really starts to limit options
With all the injuries a good low risk high reward move. Pujolis gives us a right handed bat to pinch hit and yoshi is versatile
Maybe we ought to just give it a few weeks and see what happens. All the Pujols venom and demise of the Dodgers predictions will sit on a shelf that long without deteriorating. Just dust them off and plaster them all over the internet then. It will be just as satisfying.
Dodgers signing bartolo colon?
We can only hope. BIG SEXY STRIKES LA!!!!!
Subtraction by addition…..