Corner infielder Yoshi Tsutsugo opted out of a minor league contract with the Rangers, tweets Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. Texas allowed him to hit free agency rather than add him to the MLB roster.
The Rangers took a non-roster flier on Tsutsugo over the offseason. He didn’t get a big league look, instead spending the entire season with Triple-A Round Rock. He hit .249/.380/.432 over 280 trips to the plate. The left-handed hitter drew free passes at a huge 17.3% clip but went down on strikes over 28% of the time. He connected on six home runs, nine doubles and a pair of triples — fine but unexceptional power production for a bat-first player in the Pacific Coast League.
Tsutsugo will now look elsewhere in search of an MLB opportunity for what’d be the fourth consecutive season. He struggled early upon signing with the Rays and fared even worse in a cup of coffee with the Dodgers. Tsutsugo caught fire late in the 2021 season with the Pirates, though, popping eight homers in only 43 games.
Pittsburgh re-signed him in hopes he’d approximate that production over a full schedule. That didn’t happen, as he hit .171/.249/.229 in 50 contests last year before the Bucs released him. A late-season Triple-A run with the Blue Jays didn’t result in another MLB look. Tsutsugo heads back to the market with a career .197/.291/.339 line over 182 big league contests.
Tsutsugo has primarily played first base and designated hitter at the major league level. The Rays gave him a few looks at third base back in 2020. He didn’t see any time at the hot corner from 2021-22 but started 13 games there with Round Rock (in addition to 22 starts at first base and 16 outings as the DH).
A guy can hit .200 with 20 HRs and he’s a top player. Ridiculous that that’s the measuring stick.
How bout Guy can hit .250 with 10 hr and tons of walks and can’t keep minor league job. That’s what this article was.
Only schwarber or gallo possibly fit your description and they’re not top players
That is someone Minasian would love to have!
Honestly, has to be better than Walsh at this point… right?
I really thought he’d have it together by now. Either the league figured him out last year or he woke up one morning and found a note on the night stand that said, “Dear Jared, With deepest regret I must inform you that I’ve opted out of our arrangement and am searching for another player who needs me. I’ll miss you, and I wish you all the best keeping your roster spot with the Angels. Love, Your Skills ”
Tsutsugo has never come close to replicating his success from the NPB to the MLB. He, Shogo Akiyama and Shun Yamaguchi were the big gets from Japan during the 2019-2020 offseason and all three were horrible
Pirates might as well bring him back. A 630 career MLB OPS could make him the cleanup hitter.
Shelton will make him lead off
Yeah they have 4* good enough hitters 2-6 and Santana at cleanup? I don’t know why he’s still playing everyday much less batting cleanup nightly.
*Suwinski 0 for last 26
Hayes leadoff?
The only other manager who screws around with the lineup as much as Shelton does is Kevin Cash. It actually works for Cash, though. Maybe Kevin needs to suck Shelton into a $10k offer online promising to make him a lineup wizard in 4 weeks or less in his lineup Master Class.
Literally does not matter but he had 208 at bats at Round Rock, not 280
A guy that gets on base 38 percent of the time can be on my roster and team every time. All I care about is obp. if you have a lineup where all 9 players got on base 38 percent of the time you’re going to win a lot of games.
he’s not better than anyone that’s on the rangers at the moment. literally zero spot for him on the team.
What the other 8 position players are doing isn’t relevant to whether or not you should continue playing a plodding 34 yo defensively challenged 1B/DH with a .383 obp in the PCL (which is probably about average for a 1B/DH in that league) but very little power and no speed or defense or versatility. Overall he’s a below average 1B in his AAA league and the Rangers have no reason to call him up. Especially when his contract says he had to be promoted or let go today.
The Rangers don’t need him. They only use 11 of their 13 position player roster spots. They have a great offense while being the antithesis of the trendy good offensive teams like SFG and TBR who platoon multiple positions.
Rangers starters play every game, don’t have significant platoon splits, and don’t need to be pinch hit for ever really. None really needs to be replaced defensively late in the game.* On a rare occasions you might want to pinch run in the 9th or something.
Seager has been the best hitter in mlb and otherwise 1-8 everyone is .782 or better.
The #9 batter was Grossman (690ish) a streaky hitter who isn’t terrible but appears to have been supplanted by jankowski .762 with much better defense and baserunning. Maybe you might pinch hit for him late against some lefties in which case you’d use…
Mitch Garver is the 2nd catcher with an .800 ops
The 12th man is Josh l. Smith who is a pretty decent guy to have on a roster since he can get on base and play any position. On the rangers he gets maybe 3 PA per month
The 4th bench player supposedly it’s either sam huff or brad miller but nobody has seen or heard from either in months. They really should use this spot for a herb Washington type designated pinch runner. More realistically Terrence Gore or billy Hamilton maybe
I have to say I find it interesting and kind of impressive in a “he must be determined way” that he’s still trying to make it in the MLB. He was a superstar in Japan and could easily go back there and immediately be put in the heart of a Teams lineup. That he’s giving this such a long go in the US is kind of cool.
He’s not cool he’s a complete turd. 2 yrs ago he should have gone back to Japan would be making millions again and actually playing in front of people instead he’s rotting away in triple A in front of 500 people at the ballpark.
He needs to deport himself. Shocked he does not enjoy the fine American cities of Buffalo, Oklahoma City and Indianapolis.
Word on the streets in Bridgeport is that he is heading to the Whitesox on a minor league deal