He strikes out a lot of batters. Amazing! He also throws a lot of balls that end up in the seats. Not as amazing!
Who is he and where does he come from?
He’s Yusei Kikuchi. After eight years of being one of the most dependable pitchers in Nippon Professional Baseball from 2011 to 2018, he’s bounced around the American League over the last six seasons. The Red Sox hit around faced the lefty pitcher nine times in his career, mostly during his two and a half years in Toronto. He was traded to the Astros for the latter half of 2024, finishing out the year with the highest season strikeout total of his career (206). If you think you’ve read this article recently, you have: as Toronto was floundering mid-season, Jake Roy wrote a trade deadline Smash or Pass piece on him, ultimately deciding to pass due to home run issues. If you read that, here’s this brainwave memory deleter (bzzzzt). If not, I don’t know, maybe pretend that link doesn’t exist?
Is he any good?
Yes, for the most part. The 33-year-old catches a lot of whiffs, but also catches a lot of barrels. His hard-hit percentage is among the very worst in the league, and he has given up more than 20 home runs a season every year besides 2020’s shortened season. 2024 saw batters take his 95 mile-per-hour four-seamer yard 18 times for a .505 slugging percentage.
However, he also induces strike-outs (28.0%) and whiffs (29.0%) at a much higher rate than the vast majority of arms in the league; only in his rookie season in Seattle did he strike out less than a batter an inning. His walk rate stands at just 6.0%. As a third or fourth arm, he’s never thrown fewer than 100 innings in a season (again, not counting 2020) which would give the Red Sox the consistency and longevity that’s been long evading the bottom of the rotation. And he’s a lefty, which would give the Red Sox some much-needed balance on the pitching staff.
Tl;dr, just give me his 2024 stats.
32 starts, 9-10, 175.2 IP, 4.05 ERA/3.46 FIP, 206 K, 44 BB, 25 HR
Why would he be a good fit for the 2025 Red Sox?
Kikuchi is a great middle-of-the-rotation solution, and the strikeout rate would be welcomed by a team that finished just outside the bottom ten of pitching staffs in strikeouts. It’s not every day the Red Sox get a real chance at a pitcher who managed 200 strikeouts the season prior, and it’s a testament to him staying healthy and staying in ballgames. Last year, he failed to complete five innings just six of thirty-two starts. Following his trade to the Astros, he made it to the sixth inning in every game he pitched and never gave up more than four earned runs.
Why would he not be a good fit for the 2025 Red Sox?
Giving up home runs is not something that would be welcomed by a team in the top half of home runs allowed for 2024, nor would the amount of balls that find a barrel fit on a team that has as many defensive woes as the Red Sox. And, for what it’s worth, he’s been atrocious against the Red Sox in his career, with a 5.97 ERA. Finally, he goes to the fastball almost half the time, which means Andrew Bailey would probably want to make some tweaks to his repertoire, or help a guy on the wrong side of 30… even on the wrong side of 33… develop something new.
What would he cost?
He’s a direct down-the-middle pitcher, and would probably be cheaper on a per-year basis than Nick Pivetta’s qualifying officer even if he had taken it. In 2022, Kikuchi signed a 3 year/$36 million contract. Even with a tight pitching market and Scott Boras as his agent, Kikuchi is unlikely to garner much more than about 3 years and something between $40 and $50 million, roughly the same amount he’s been making through two contracts.
Show me a cool highlight.
I touched upon how he’s fared against the Red Sox in his career, but here he is mowing down some Yankees, nine to be exact, in six innings on April 16. By the way, his career ERA against the Yankees is a much more digestible 2.83.
Smash or pass?
I’ll say it again and again. If this is the most high-profile signing the Red Sox make, the offseason would be a failure. But, if you believe the rumor that the Juan Soto pitch included talk of two new arms in the rotation (between the mentions of traffic coming from LAX) and Kikuchi is the second of those arms (or if one of these implied arms isn’t Lucas Giolito), I would be alright with that.
But, ultimately, I get squeamish from the home run rate, especially in a hitter-friendly park like Fenway. If this contract were to end up south of ~$15 million dollars, I’d enthusiastically smash. But, if it’s all too good to be true and I needed to choose between a pitcher like Garrett Crochet, Blake Snell, or Kikuchi, I’d pass on Kikuchi.