Red Sox Triston Casas to Mariners for Masa Yoshida Salary Dump in Axed Trade Try

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Triston Casas (l) and Masataka Yoshida (r) of the Boston Red Sox.

Boston Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas has been the subject of repeated trade rumors since the beginning of the 2024-2025 offseason. In mid-November, ESPN baseball analyst Buster Olney reported that with Casas’ injury history, the Red Sox needed to trade him right away to avoid a drop in his value.

He was supposedly going to be included in a deal for White Sox lefty ace Garrett Crochet, but Boston pulled that one off without giving up any Major Leaguers.

Since then, the 24-year-old Casas has been linked to trades for a variety of pitchers and even mentioned as a piece in a deal that would, in theory, net the Red Sox Vladimir Guerrero Jr. from the Toronto Blue Jays. All of this in spite of the fact that Red Sox chief of baseball operations Craig Breslow denied that Casas was on the trade block.

Red Sox Ready to Casas’s ’40 Home Run Potential’

“Casas is a guy that we think has 40 home run potential,” Breslow said in early November. “He’s young and also has a great strike zone discipline and controls an at-bat. We’re excited he’s on our team.”

Nonetheless, it now not only appears that the Red Sox were ready to trade Casas to the Seattle Mariners for pitcher Luis Castillo, but the reason the trade talks hit a roadblock had nothing to do with Boston’s willingness to trade him, and everything to do with the team’s eagerness to trade another player in order to to dump that player’s salary.

Casas, a Red Sox 2018 first round draft pick (26th overall), is still not only under team control for another four seasons, but he will not even be eligible for salary arbitration until after the 2025 season. Given what Breslow calls his “40 home run potential” and his career on base percentage of .357, Casas comes as an incredible bargain for Boston at just $800,000 for his services next season.

Masataka Yoshida, on the other hand, has three years remaining on the five-year, $90 million deal the Red Sox awarded him in 2023, to lure him away from the Orix Buffaloes of Japan’s Pacific League. The Red Sox will pay Yoshida $18.6 million next season and in each of the two following seasons — unless they can persuade another team to assume the remainder of his contract.

Red Sox Brass ‘Can’t Stand’ Yoshida as a Player

Yoshida missed 54 games in 2024 with injuries to his thumb and shoulder. On October 3, the 30-year-old underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder.

But perhaps worst of all for Yoshida, the Red Sox are so suspicious of his outfield defense that he has been relegated strictly to the role of a lefthanded designated hitter with very little power. His Major League career slugging percentage is just .433.

One Red Sox-watcher, Ed Hand of the “Pod by the River” podcast, summed up how he says the team feels about Yoshida.

“The Red Sox front office hate the player that Masataka Yoshida is,” Hand wrote. “They can’t stand him.”

That is evidently why, according to a report by MLB.com baseball insider Mark Feinsand, “the Mariners wanted Triston Casas back in a trade, something the Red Sox were unwilling to do unless Seattle took back Masataka Yoshida, who has three years and $55.8 million remaining on his contract.”

In other words, the Red Sox were willing to part ways with Casas if it meant getting out from under Yoshida’s salary obligations.

“Seattle super dumb for turning this down,” Hand wrote. “Boston super dumb to even offer it. Team appears to be so desperate to dump Yoshida, they evidentially can’t think straight on the matter and are underrating Casas.”