
When longtime major league outfielder Adam Jones arrived in Japan to play for the Orix Buffaloes in 2020, he noticed one player right away — a player everyone called Harper-san, who wore No. 34.
It wasn’t Bryce Harper himself, of course, but one of his biggest fans: current Red Sox outfielder Masataka Yoshida.
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Yoshida not only wore 34 in Japan for Harper, but named his French bulldog Harper and uses an Instagram handle (BH_Masataka34) with Harper’s initials and number. When Nippon Professional Baseball had a game where players wore nicknames on the backs of their jerseys, Yoshida, naturally, chose Harper as his nickname.
“He’d mimic Harper, in a way, using the whole field and how he goes about his offensive game,” Jones said. At one point, Jones reached out to Harper to have him send a signed jersey for Yoshida and his dog as a gift for his Orix teammate.
So it’s safe to say Yoshida has had this weekend in Philadelphia circled on his calendar since signing with the Red Sox in December.
The fact that Harper will be on the field for the first time at home this year after an accelerated recovery from offseason Tommy John surgery feels even more serendipitous for the Red Sox outfielder.
“I’m really honored to play against him,” Yoshida said through interpreter Keiichiro Wakabayashi. “Also I’ve heard that surgery usually takes a year to come back to play, but he’s come back to play much quicker than usual. I’ve experienced some injuries, so I know it’s a lot of work to come back, so that part I really respect.”
Yoshida is off to an impressive start in his rookie season, and his intense studying of Major League Baseball while playing in Nippon Professional Baseball for seven seasons has undoubtedly helped ease his transition to American baseball.
There was always going to be a learning curve, but for Yoshida to be hitting at his current clip is something that’s impressed even the Red Sox, who banked on his power and on-base potential when they signed him to a five-year, $90 million deal. After a slow start to the season, Yoshida posted a 3-for-5 night on Thursday and extended his hitting streak to 14 games, the longest active streak in the majors. He’s currently hitting .317 with a .948 OPS, six homers and 24 RBIs in 27 games.
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Yoshida is learning English and finding ways to communicate with his Red Sox teammates and coaches, but baseball talk is the universal language in the clubhouse. In the few months that manager Alex Cora has gotten to know Yoshida, he’s appreciated Yoshida’s intense passion for the game.
“He’s a baseball rat, he is,” Cora said. “He knows the game. He knows the players. It’s good baseball conversations with him, which I love. He knows a lot. He knows the pitchers. As far as homework, he understands what he needs to do to prepare for this.”
Cora was impressed that Yoshida already knew so much about so many of his Red Sox teammates, as well as others across the league, when he arrived in spring training.
“He knows the good ones and what they do,” Cora said. “For example Javy Báez, he told me, ‘Puerto Rico, good defender, pop, homers’. I bet he was locked in on this for a while, understanding he wanted to come here, so it’s refreshing to talk baseball with him.”
When the Red Sox were scouting Yoshida last season, they were afraid the Phillies would have the upper hand in signing Yoshida given his affinity for Harper. Not only did they not have Harper, but No. 34 in Boston was off the table for obvious reasons having to do with a certain Dominican slugger and Red Sox legend. But the Phillies didn’t pursue Yoshida as aggressively without the need for an outfield bat. At the time, the Red Sox’s signing of Yoshida so quickly after he posted in December was baffling for many across baseball.
Jones, a 14-year major-league veteran who played two seasons in Orix alongside Yoshida, was a source of knowledge for the Red Sox, as well as other teams who were scouting him. Jones’ description of Yoshida as a Japanese version of San Diego Padres outfielder Juan Soto reinforced the Red Sox’s internal opinions of the player. The Red Sox, like every other team, could not meet with Yoshida until he had posted, so all of their data and analysis came from external observations and conversations with people across NBP.
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“When I finally met him, his attention to detail was real,” said Red Sox vice president of scouting development and integration Gus Quattlebaum, who spent weeks in Japan watching Yoshida last year. “He asked me if the ball snakes at Fenway in the outfield grass. I’ve never had someone ask me that. There was attention to detail and he would make observations on other hitters that stood out. Hitters came to him, he saw the game differently.”
All of that information gave the Red Sox conviction in signing Yoshida. Yet the slow start had some questioning the deal. Jones watched from afar and wasn’t concerned. He had a message relayed to his former teammate.
“I know his interpreter Kei really well and I texted him to tell Yoshida ‘you don’t need to swing so hard, they throw hard here, the ball will fly,’” Jones said. “Just stick to the ball and be quick enough and use the whole field. That’s what Juan Soto does. Juan Soto is not a power hitter, he uses the whole field, but hits the ball hard on the line and takes his walks. Yoshida will take his walks.”
Yoshida put himself on the radar of American fans in the spring with an eye-opening performance in the World Baseball Classic for Japan, hitting .409 with two homers and a tournament-record 13 RBIs.
In the midst of the successful tournament, he got a video message of encouragement from Harper. Both Yoshida and Harper have Scott Boras as their agent and Boras asked Harper to send Yoshida a message congratulating him on his impressive series.
“I’d like to thank him for that message,” Yoshida said of what he might say to Harper upon their meeting this weekend.
“He’s a really great hitter and swings aggressively and is powerful,” Yoshida said. “I was watching him since he was with the Nationals as a rookie, I really respected how he played.”
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It’s still just one month into Yoshida’s big-league career, with numerous milestones likely to come. But meeting Harper, the player who spurred his desire to play in America, will likely be one of his biggest honors.
“Yoshida had aspirations to go to America the day I met him and asked questions about pitchers and ballparks,” Jones recalled. “For some reason I said Fenway would be the best place for him and he’s gotten off to a pretty solid run so far.”
(Photo: Brian Fluharty / Getty Images)
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