DataBaseball
2026
Masataka Yoshida headshot

Players · Y · DH · 2026

Masataka Yoshida

Age
33
B/T
L/R
Height
5' 8"
Weight
192 lb
Number
#7
Born
July 15, 1993 in Fukui, Japan
MLB debut
March 30, 2023
Salary, 2026
$18.6M
dbWAR
4.4
4 season(s)
PA
297
AVG
.274
OBP
.347
SLG
.399
wRC+
108
100 = avg

Masataka Yoshida is a designated hitter for the Boston Red Sox. So far in 2026 he has hit 5 home runs and knocked in 28 RBIs, notching 72 hits across 297 plate appearances in 87 games. His batting average is .274, 12.2% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .347 clip and slugged .399, for an OPS of .746, 3.8% higher than the league mark of .719 — 5th of 16 on his team, and 146th of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.8 mph off the bat, hit 39.9% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 3.4% of them and made contact on 84.4% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 108 wRC+ puts his offence 8% above average. That comes to 0.8 dbWAR — +3.4 runs with the bat, -0.3 for the ballpark, -0.1 on the bases, +1.7 on double plays, -6.1 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2026.

wRC+108
wOBA.332
ISO.125
BB%9.4%
WAR.8

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +7.8 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting+3.4Ballpark-0.3Baserunning-0.1Double plays+1.7Position-6.1Replacement+9.2
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

2.11.00.023242526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026BOS872977252822833.274.347.399.125.2949.4%11.1%.332+3.41080.8
2025BOS552055042631024.266.307.388.122.2804.9%11.7%.304-1.9920.1
2024BOS108421106105622752.280.349.415.135.3026.4%12.4%.339+9.21171.4
2023BOS140580155157283481.289.338.445.156.3165.9%14.0%.340+9.91102.1

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP30278034.296.367.407.34713.3%
vs RHP2672366452529.271.345.398.33110.9%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 233 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 233 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
3.4%
8 barrels
Exit velocity
88.8
mph average
Max exit velo
108.6
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
39.9%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
31.3%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
8.9°
average
Barrel rate3.4%
Exit velocity88.8 mph
Hard hit rate39.9%
Contact rate84.4%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2026.

.313.176.167.250.18816 AB.32128 AB.10519 AB.39123 AB.37532 AB.40922 AB.11817 AB.29224 AB.27311 AB
Below averageLeague averageAbove average
Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .243.

Situational hitting

How Masataka Yoshida hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by
By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations297——————.274.347.399.332
Bases empty15814140441517.284.361.418.349
Runner on first6658181279.310.394.448.376
Runners on139122321241316.262.331.377.313
RISP73641402267.219.274.313.254

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

Head to head

Put Masataka Yoshida beside up to three others.

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Masataka Yoshida

Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.