Red Sox

Red Sox’ Triston Casas and Masataka Yoshida received this honor from MLB Pipeline

Casas and Yoshida were selected to MLB Pipeline's All-Rookie first and second teams, respectively.

Red Sox rookies Masataka Yoshida (7) and Triston Casas (right) were named to MLB Pipeline's All-Rookie Teams Steven Senne/AP Photo

By Luke Scotchie

October 20, 2023

The Boston Red Sox’ rookie class has earned recognition from some of baseball’s best prospect evaluators.

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On Tuesday, MLB Pipeline honored baseball’s best newcomers by releasing their 2023 All-Rookie Teams. You won’t have to scroll too far to find the first Red Sox representative, as they chose Triston Casas as its first baseman on the first team.

Casas struggled to start his 2023 season, as he finished his April batting .137/.284/.301 with three home runs and six RBIs in 24 games. But once the summer came, he asserted himself as one of the Red Sox’ most important hitters. He batted .286/.375/.476 with 11 RBIs in June and only got better in July, when he batted .348/.442/.758 with seven home runs and 13 RBIs to earn AL Rookie of the Month.

He wasn’t just one of the best hitters on the Red Sox, though. Casas had the fourth-highest OPS of all major leaguers with at least 200 plate appearances in games played after the All-Star break with 1.034, trailing only MVP candidates Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Matt Olson.

Casas will almost certainly be a close contender for this year’s AL Rookie of the Year race alongside Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson and Texas’ Josh Jung, both of whom join him on MLB Pipeline’s First Team at their respective positions.

Here's our 2023 first team All-Rookie squad: https://t.co/de7zsFZoYS pic.twitter.com/bukMRQYa84
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) October 19, 2023

Casas isn’t the only Red Sox player to be featured on one of these lists. MLB Pipeline placed Masataka Yoshida as one of the three outfielders on its second team alongside St. Louis’ Jordan Walker and Minnesota’s Matt Wallner.

Yoshida seemed to have the opposite season Casas had. He had an incredible start to his rookie year, batting .316/.382/.492 with 10 home runs and 44 RBIS before the All-Star break, and his .319 batting average led the AL at the end of July. But those numbers dropped to .254/.278/.386 in the second half of the season, and he didn’t regain his early-season magic before his season was over.

Still, Yoshida finished the year batting .289/.338/.783 with 15 home runs and 72 RBIs. His .289 batting average ranked as the highest among all qualified Red Sox players last season, and it was the highest of any Red Sox rookie since Dustin Pedroia in 2007.

The three outfielders who made the first team over Yoshida were Arizona’s Corbin Carroll, Colorado’s Nolan Jones, and James Outman of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yoshida’s lackluster second half likely contributed to the snub, but he vowed on Instagram to work hard in the offseason so that he can replicate his first-half production year-round. If that happens, fans across the league will look back and wonder why Yoshida was only placed on MLB Pipeline’s All-Rookie Second Team.