I don’t really see the fit here for the White Sox, but Rick Hahn isn’t calling me for my advice. MLB teams have two more weeks to negotiate a contract with left-handed slugger Yoshitomo Tsutsugo, who was posted by his Japanese team in November.
The White Sox are one of several teams showing interest in the 28-year-old outfielder according to Jon Morosi.
Tsutsugo has put up some monster numbers with Yokohama, including a 44-home run season and 1.110 OPS in 2016.
Now, you obviously don’t want to stereotype players and no one will actually know how any given player’s skillset will translate from league to league, but the trend hasn’t been good for power hitters coming from Japan outside of a couple exceptions.
Last month Enos Sarris from The Athletic tackled the subject of how a few of the international free agents this offseason could translate in MLB. Tsutsugo’s 2019 season was good, but not as great as he had been and that’s with him playing in the best hitter-friendly park in Japan.
This model projects Tsutsugo being about a .790 OPS hitter.
Via The Athletic.
This comes with an above-average walk rate and around league-average contact ability, with the footnote that Tsutsugo’s strikeout rate was a career-worst last year. Without much defensive value, we’ll have to limit this to corner outfielders and first basemen, but we have a secret weapon: A source in a front office looked at his exit velocity numbers and said they were comparable to the balls in play off Nick Castellanos’ bat last year, and Castellanos has long had an isolated slugging percentage over .200.
So, Tsutsugo isn’t good defensively, has an average walk rate in Japan, his strikeout rate would increase against MLB pitching, but he does hit the ball hard, comparable to Nick Castellanos. If that’s the case, then why not just go and get Castellanos and not gamble on Tsutsugo hopefully working out.
There’s obviously one reason that teams would go after Tsutsugo and that’s because he’d provide a cheaper alternative to the other free agent outfielders. But that can’t be a valid reason, especially for the White Sox who have plenty of space to spend.
