Though it hasn’t been on my mind all the time, Yoshi Tsutsugo has entered it recently (shout out to Tindor). And I think he’s growing on me for the upcoming season. Now I can’t say that many Pirates get me motivated enough to write about; I can say, that there’s prime opportunity to pull some value when one of them does anything of note. The reason being no one cares about the Pirates. I mean, come on look at them. Well, in this upcoming season, the Bucs stop here. At least the middle of their lineup does.
Tsutsugo came over from Japan 2 years ago and signed with the Rays during the shortened season. Since that spring training wasn’t much of one, Tsutsugo probably had a lot more difficulty adjusting to MLB than he might have otherwise in a normal year with normal preparation. His first season was a bit lackluster, and as you might suspect he had trouble hitting MLB fastballs.
| Season | Age | PA | BB% | K% | BABIP | AVG | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 28 | 185 | 14.1% | 27.0% | 0.230 | 0.197 | 0.314 | 0.395 |
| 2021 | 29 | 262 | 11.1% | 27.5% | 0.278 | 0.217 | 0.307 | 0.383 |
I addressed this some in the Seiya article, but that is one of the key things for batters to find success in MLB; the ability to handle top-notch velocity and do it well. If you can read and make contact, good things happen. But I digress… So we look at his 2 MLB seasons on the surface and they are, how you say, uninspiring. One could look at it and say the player looks a bit overmatched for the level. The walk rate was decent, but not enough good contact to survive. But isn’t the real story the friends (and statistical improvements) we’ve made along the way?
| Season | Team | PA | BB% | K% | BABIP | AVG | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | TBR | 87 | 9.2% | 31.0% | 0.255 | 0.167 | 0.244 | 0.218 |
| 2021 | LAD | 31 | 19.4% | 38.7% | 0.231 | 0.120 | 0.290 | 0.120 |
| 2021 | PIT | 144 | 10.4% | 22.9% | 0.299 | 0.268 | 0.347 | 0.535 |
Last year started as poorly as the year prior, and he even bounced around the league some. But when you least expected he found something on the Pirates. Or did they find something in him? What we find here is growth. His K-rate had ballooned north of 30% and then, in Pittsburg of all places, he was able to lower it to a very respectable 23%. His BABIP returned to his NPB career average and his AVG rose to .268 with a SLG north of .500, all good things. Is this the long-awaited adjustment we had been hoping for?
| Splits | LD% | GB% | FB% | HR/FB | Pull% | Center% | Oppo% | Hard% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Half | 14.1% | 46.9% | 39.1% | 0.0% | 35.4% | 38.5% | 26.2% | 33.8% |
| 2nd Half | 14.7% | 36.8% | 48.4% | 17.4% | 35.8% | 29.5% | 34.7% | 38.9% |
The big changes in his batted ball profile show that lowered his ground ball rate 10% and increased his flyball rate by nearly 10% as well. Those are the type of changes you like to see. Not only that, but he became more patient and is probably letting the ball get a bit deeper over the plate as he is now using the opposite side of the field more. Those coupled together led to him increasing his hard contact by 5+ percent with the flyballs converting to home runs at a respectable 17.4%, that’s progress!
| HR | BB% | K% | ISO | BABIP | AVG | OBP | SLG | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NPB Career | 30.8 | 13.3% | 20.8% | 0.243 | 0.320 | 0.285 | 0.382 | 0.528 |
In his full season since becoming a regular in the NPB, Yoshi Tsutsugo’s career line looks a lot like the rates he was putting up towards the end of the year. So it could be that he finally adjusted to MLB pitchers after spending the middle parts of the 2021 season in the minors working on his swing/approach. In fact, it looks right in line with what you’d expect to see from a AAA player that was called up from the minors facing the next level of play. This may mean that the real Tsutsugo has finally materialized before us.
So actionable advice right? Tsutsugo’s current NFBC ADP is around 358, and around 300, he’s not a bad gamble to take at the end of your draft in case he produces some nice CI numbers. .250 and 20+ HR is what I envision should he get the ABs. And looking at the roster he could certainly end up stepping into the middle of the order with little challengers and get a full season of ABs, especially with the addition of the NL DH. He won’t be hitting the Dodgers lineup, but could still provide some decent value this late in the draft and he comes with a 1B/OF dual-position eligibility. You just gotta say the word, Tsutsugo.
If you want more Coolwhip to top off your baseball experience, fantasy or otherwise, you can follow me on Twitter: @CoolwhipRB.
