Masanao Yoshida held a press conference at the ORIX players’ dormitory and expressed his gratitude
Expectations are high for outfielder Masanao Yoshida, who transferred from Orix to the Red Sox using the posting system. A large contract of 90 million dollars (about 11.86 billion yen) for 5 years. It is natural that it is the highest amount ever for a fielder transferred from Japan, surpassing the outfielder Seiya Suzuki of the Cubs. He has already been attracting a lot of attention as a batter with few strikeouts in the United States, and he is getting hot attention from Red Sox fans. It seems that the first enemy that Yoshida must overcome is “pressure”.
On the 22nd, the press conference held at the ORIX player dormitory “Seitokan” in Maishima, Osaka was meant to be a departure greeting to the Japanese fans. After expressing his gratitude to all the people who have been involved so far, he said, “What I do is to do my best as I did in Japan. In addition, I would like to learn new things in the United States and continue to grow.
However, he seems to be quickly feeling the pressure of the huge contract. Regarding the evaluation, I answered while choosing my words, “Well, how about it? Well, this is also a business, or in the majors, there will be more and more things like this. I wonder if that is different from Japan.” . Furthermore, “Well, recently, even if I take a taxi, I’m told that I can’t take it, and while I wondered if I was being looked at with that kind of eye, yes, there are changes,” he said with a bit of bewilderment.
Major challenges for Japanese fielders are by no means easy. Mr. Ichiro, who is a big senior of ORIX, has achieved great success, but the generation that follows Shohei Otani is a special case and tends to struggle. Under such circumstances, considering only the expected amount of money, it would not be strange if the results of the Ichiro class and the Otani class were required. In addition to technical aspects, there are things that must be overcome mentally. In that sense, a tough battle awaits.