‘Just playing the heel’: Josh Reddick on his Yoshinobu Yamamoto tweet

If you're not on social media, good for you. If so, you know that any good start by a Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto what immediately follows is a torrent of venom aimed at former major league outfielder Josh Reddick.

No sooner had Yamamoto completed his World Series game last week than Reddick received 3 million views on one of his two-year-old tweets.

Many of these viewers were happy to tell him he was an idiot.

In 2023, the Dodgers signed Yamamoto, who has won the Japanese version of the Cy Young Award three years in a row. for $325 million.

Reddick tweet: “How to give a guy $325 million without ever throwing a ball in MLB”

The Dodgers will turn to Yamamoto on Friday to keep their season alive for Game 7 against the Toronto Blue Jays. He could—and this sounds crazy in modern baseball—pitch his third straight complete game.

Two weeks ago, after Yamamoto quit complete game in the National League Championship Series, Reddick appeared on Crush the Urban Area Podcast.

“If Paul Skenes didn’t exist, Yoshinobu Yamamoto would have walked away and won the Cy Young Award,” said podcast host Chandler Rome.

Rome then asked Reddick to respond to his tweet.

“I don’t think I would say I regret it,” Reddick said. “I'd probably say it tomorrow if they gave it [that money] to someone else. This is just my opinion and I'm allowed to have it because it's social media…

“That was my opinion, and obviously it was wrong. This guy was phenomenal, and it's very, very, very, very, very, very good to come here and do what he did. I admit I was wrong on that matter.”

Reddick said he hears about it regularly from Dodgers fans.

“They love it,” he said. “I just love how much I live in the heads of Dodgers fans every day and how they look forward to making me feel like they're upsetting me by sending these tweets and just completely ruining my day.

“If you're a Dodger fan: I don't care. So you get your two seconds of fame and get back to work.”

At the time of the podcast's release, Reddick's tweet had received 9 million views. Now there are 12 million of them.

“It’s like a fight, man,” he said. “You have to be a good guy or a bad guy. As long as you're the guy who gets noticed, you're doing something right.”

“I’m just going to play for the Dodgers for the rest of my life.”