The Red Sox made their first major counter move to the rival Yankees, agreeing to a five-year, $90 million deal with Japanese outfielder Masataka Yoshida, a source told MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. The club has not confirmed the move.

The Red Sox will have to pay a $15.375 million posting fee to the Orix Buffaloes based on the $90 million contract for Yoshida.

The Orix Buffaloes of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball have officially posted outfielder Masataka Yoshida, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN. He’ll have 30 days to find a deal with a major league team or else return to the Buffaloes for 2023.

Yoshida, 29, made his NPB debut with the Buffaloes in 2016 and has since established himself as a key contributor at the plate. In 2022, he played in 119 games, hitting 21 home runs and producing an overall batting line of .335/.447/.561. That level of production and Yoshida’s age should lead to him garnering plenty of interest from North American teams. It was reported back in November that this posting was coming, but NPB contracts generally run until the start of December, which delayed the official move until now.

The Yankees are showing interest in outfielder Masataka Yoshida, an outstanding hitter with a career slash line of .326/.419/.538.

Yoshida would fit the Yankees as he is a left-handed hitter and the type of contact hitter they prefer. Think Andrew Benintendi with much more power.

“I’m aware of him,” was all GM Brian Cashman would say about Yoshida. But another Yankees person said they are indeed interested.

The Yankees’ top outfield target is obviously Aaron Judge, but they’d like two outfielders, with the second one (assuming they can re-sign Judge) preferably left-handed. Yoshida, 29, drew attention with a .447 on-base percentage this past season.

“He’s as legit as they come,” former MLB outfielder Joe McCarthy, who played in Japan, told the Post’s Joel Sherman. “He didn’t slump for five months. He can go gap to gap. He just constantly barrels up pitches.”

He will turn 30 in January, is a three-time All-Star and went 11-6 with a 1.94 ERA this year with 156 strikeouts in 144 innings. He is a Yu Darvish disciple, often training with him in the offseason in the U.S. To better prep for MLB, Senga began working with a Driveline Baseball (think pitch maximization and design) representative in Japan.

Multiple MLB officials painted the upside of a high-octane fastball that can reach triple digits and which Senga can maintain efficiently in the mid-90s for an entire start with one of the world’s best forkball/splits.

On the downside, Senga will have to improve his breaking ball in MLB, which has become slider crazy. There is worry about a few nagging elbow injuries. And there are enough fastball command issues that some MLB execs wondered if he will become a closer. Beyond that, there are concerns about the transition from pitching every sixth day to every fifth day, leaving behind the tacky Japanese baseball (though MLB is experimenting with a tacky ball) and facing more stacked and powerful lineups. The excitement around Senga is not the same as for, say, Darvish or Irabu or Masahiro Tanaka.
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The Yankees, among others, are looking for lefty hitters with strong bat-to-ball skills and Rea was so enthusiastic about Yoshida that he actually texted a series of clips of Yoshida hitting, including a homer off Rea.

“He’s an incredible hitter,” Rea said. “Yoshida impresses every game, every at-bat. He’s unique. He has great awareness of the strike zone. He always has good at-bats. He can hit for power and average. He’s a much better hitter than [Seiya] Suzuki [who had a .770 OPS and 14 homers in 446 plate appearances as a 2002 rookie with the Cubs]. … There’s no reason he couldn’t be one of the best hitters in [MLB].”