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Jackie Bradley Jr. - does the glove outweigh the bat?
gerry
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Post by gerry on Sept 19, 2015 20:05:08 GMT -5
Maybe not. But we truly do not know what his numbers will be. We don't. Any speculation based on slump or streak is likely inaccurate. The league adjusted to an incredibly hot hitter on a run we all knew was not sustainable. But we know that, except for 2014, he can and has hit pretty well over several years at several levels.
Today, he emphatically demonstrated that, despite his struggles, he is able to figure things out (adjust), ironicallly after watching film with Chili Davis (as in amenable to coaching, so can we get over that old chestnut?). If he does stabilize, and it increasingly looks like he can, gain some consistency, restore his OBP and K/BB rate, hit the occasional HR and double, there is no one else I would want in CF or RF going forward. And, as David Ortiz likes to say, its the average at the end of the year that counts.. So, like everyone else, I will remain patient and supportive.
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Post by mredsox89 on Sept 19, 2015 20:06:55 GMT -5
Here's a thought/debate...
If you assume JBJ is a sub 100 wRC+ guy (80-90), and Christian Vazquez is similar, is the offense top heavy enough to have multiple low offense high defense guys in the starting 9?
I tend to think both of them can get to league average 100 wRC+ within 2 years, which would make this point moot, let alone the aspect of Swihart getting the bulk of the starts behind the plate. But having to bad offensive players in the bottom of the order would be a lot to overcome if they aren't anywhere close to league average
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Post by telson13 on Sept 19, 2015 20:17:13 GMT -5
Wrote this up in the Baltimore thread. Pitchers have pretty much stopped throwing to him inside. The one time they did in that series, he sent a screamer down the right-field line that was just foul. The plan, now, appears to be up and away. That's understandable since he's also tailored his swing to lift the stuff that's down on that side into left field and he did that also, though the ball was caught on the run. So he has to adjust, again. That is baseball, that is what pitchers do is probe for any weakness they can find. And that's what he's going to have to respond to if he can. This isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. That's just wrong; I saw him swinging K on a high inside FB (at 89 MPH) on Wednesday An anecdotal sample size of one is the polar opposite of a compelling argument.
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Post by ray88h66 on Sept 19, 2015 21:32:07 GMT -5
Thursty and others are not giving the D enough value. JBJ doesn't have to hit much to be worth being in the line-up.
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Post by telluricrook on Sept 20, 2015 1:05:40 GMT -5
Thursty and others are not giving the D enough value. JBJ doesn't have to hit much to be worth being in the line-up. Having an above average bat for a Boston Red Sox outfielder is not asking too much. This is not miami or san diego, anyway the right guy for the job is going to be put in the line-up.
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Post by m1keyboots on Sept 20, 2015 2:37:25 GMT -5
Here's a thought/debate... If you assume JBJ is a sub 100 wRC+ guy (80-90), and Christian Vazquez is similar, is the offense top heavy enough to have multiple low offense high defense guys in the starting 9? I tend to think both of them can get to league average 100 wRC+ within 2 years, which would make this point moot, let alone the aspect of Swihart getting the bulk of the starts behind the plate. But having to bad offensive players in the bottom of the order would be a lot to overcome if they aren't anywhere close to league average Its quite obvious JBJ is a much better offensive player based solely on his breakout then BOMB tonight both at 2 of the most premium positions
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Post by thursty on Sept 20, 2015 8:35:17 GMT -5
Let's try to look analytically at the question of whether an 80+ player can remain an everyday player in the majors for some extended period of time.
So I took a look at the years 2013-present at all players who had minimum 900 PA (that's relatively generous 300 PA/year as I didn't want to exclude players who might have been injured)
That's 248 players. 23 of those had wRC+ <= 80. How many of those 23 are starters now, i.e. their teams have been willing to "live" with their subpar offense - ~ 10: (Segura, Flowers, Cozart, Espinosa, LeMahieu, Andrus, Hechavarria, Escobar, Hamilton, Amarista) and I'm being generous here (Amarista and Espinosa aren't really everyday players); it's not surprising that 5/6 of the 10 are SS (a bit surprising that only 1 is a C), exactly one of the 10 is an OF (Hamilton).
Nearly everyone of those has either been benched, sent to the minors, or looked to be traded/dumped (I'm sure jmei will argue as that's what he does and if you're capable of writing that the Rangers are "happily" playing Andrus, you're capable of writing anything). I'd say that the only players among those 10 whose jobs are "safe" are Hechevarria, Escobar, and maybe Cozart.
It's just extremely rare for teams to carry that level of offense for any period of time, especially among OF.
Now that's just describing what teams have done, and not what they *should* do; I doubt there's anyone on this site who is less deferential to the idea that baseball FO's are rational maximizing machines (paying Sandoval $19/year anyone?), but in this I think they've basically got it right - everyday players need to hit, that's still the most precious skill in baseball.
And a word on Simmons; he's not on the list because he had an 81+ in the time period, but I'm fine to include him. Here's the point - JBJ is nowhere close to a Simmons who put up a 90 DRS in that time period - the probability that JBJ would reach that level if he were to play everyday for 3 years - is . . . ZERO. Simmons is a once in a generation defensive talent, JBJ is a plus defender with an outrageous arm.
I'd love to know the correlation between those who froth at the mouth over JBJ's defense (what I call the battle of adjectives) with those who did (do) so over a certain SS that was traded away - I bet it's close to 100%.
That sure-fire HOF SS, playing his first full season at SS has put up an awe-inspiring -2 DRS this year; I'm not suggesting JBJ would sink to below average, but hyperbole doesn't actually turn batted balls into outs.
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 20, 2015 10:23:51 GMT -5
Well he has a 140 wRC+ in 200 PA, so there's a way to go. Nearly no one on the list of 80 wRC+ guys are as good as JBJ is on defense.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Sept 20, 2015 10:33:45 GMT -5
And we still do not know, and can not accurately predict at this point, where his offensive numbers will wind up. Neither 2014 nor his 2015 are accurate. If he is anywhere in the middle of those outliers, he becomes a GG allstar worth building around.
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Post by thursty on Sept 20, 2015 10:45:52 GMT -5
Well he has a 140 wRC+ in 200 PA, 75+ in 730 PA so there's a way to go. Nearly no one on the list of 80 wRC+ guys are as good as JBJ is on defense. FTFY
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Post by ray88h66 on Sept 20, 2015 14:28:14 GMT -5
To Thursty or anyone. What does JBJ have to hit to be an everyday player? What does he need to hit to be a 4th or 5th guy?
I'd like a 5 tool Mays type at every spot, but JBJ is cheap and I think the upside is huge. He can also be dumped at anytime. Unlike Hanley and Panda.
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steveofbradenton
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Post by steveofbradenton on Sept 20, 2015 14:45:10 GMT -5
To Thursty or anyone. What does JBJ have to hit to be an everyday player? What does he need to hit to be a 4th or 5th guy? I'd like a 5 tool Mays type at every spot, but JBJ is cheap and I think the upside is huge. He can also be dumped at anytime. Unlike Hanley and Panda. For me, .270/.330/.375 is fine. BUT cut down on the K's.
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Post by ray88h66 on Sept 20, 2015 15:33:02 GMT -5
To Thursty or anyone. What does JBJ have to hit to be an everyday player? What does he need to hit to be a 4th or 5th guy? I'd like a 5 tool Mays type at every spot, but JBJ is cheap and I think the upside is huge. He can also be dumped at anytime. Unlike Hanley and Panda. For me, .270/.330/.375 is fine. BUT cut down on the K's. Thanks Steve.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Sept 20, 2015 16:58:33 GMT -5
That's around .700 OPS. Right now he's around .900. I'm reminded, once again, of George Carlin's joke, about Idaho's state motto being Famous Potatoes, and New Hampshire's Live Free Or Die. He suggested the truth was somewhere in between.
Bradley is genetically incapable of sporting an isolated discipline of only .6, and if his average is .270 there's no way he'll slug less than .425 or so. He just hits the ball too hard. So I'd set the "Carlin Median" somewhere around .800. But I also think his peak will be higher than that.
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Post by mgoetze on Sept 20, 2015 17:16:12 GMT -5
Anyway, those are two pretty good counterpoints - if JBJ could put up Pillar-type defensive and offensive numbers, he'd be a useful player; but I think both also offer a cautionary tale. Would Pillar be playing everyday if the Blue Jays weren't the best offense by 100+ runs and there was a ready alternative? This question makes implications that are the exact opposite of correct. In reality, offensive output is mildly nonlinear, such that for a team with an already excellent offense, offensive skills should be weighted HIGHER than defensive skills relative to a team with an average or worse overall offense.
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Post by jmei on Sept 20, 2015 20:50:25 GMT -5
Let's try to look analytically at the question of whether an 80+ player can remain an everyday player in the majors for some extended period of time. So I took a look at the years 2013-present at all players who had minimum 900 PA (that's relatively generous 300 PA/year as I didn't want to exclude players who might have been injured) That's 248 players. 23 of those had wRC+ <= 80. How many of those 23 are starters now, i.e. their teams have been willing to "live" with their subpar offense - ~ 10: (Segura, Flowers, Cozart, Espinosa, LeMahieu, Andrus, Hechavarria, Escobar, Hamilton, Amarista) and I'm being generous here (Amarista and Espinosa aren't really everyday players); it's not surprising that 5/6 of the 10 are SS (a bit surprising that only 1 is a C), exactly one of the 10 is an OF (Hamilton). Nearly everyone of those has either been benched, sent to the minors, or looked to be traded/dumped (I'm sure jmei will argue as that's what he does and if you're capable of writing that the Rangers are "happily" playing Andrus, you're capable of writing anything). I'd say that the only players among those 10 whose jobs are "safe" are Hechevarria, Escobar, and maybe Cozart. It's just extremely rare for teams to carry that level of offense for any period of time, especially among OF. Now that's just describing what teams have done, and not what they *should* do; I doubt there's anyone on this site who is less deferential to the idea that baseball FO's are rational maximizing machines (paying Sandoval $19/year anyone?), but in this I think they've basically got it right - everyday players need to hit, that's still the most precious skill in baseball. And a word on Simmons; he's not on the list because he had an 81+ in the time period, but I'm fine to include him. Here's the point - JBJ is nowhere close to a Simmons who put up a 90 DRS in that time period - the probability that JBJ would reach that level if he were to play everyday for 3 years - is . . . ZERO. Simmons is a once in a generation defensive talent, JBJ is a plus defender with an outrageous arm. I never said that he would be a surefire lock as a starter if he were an 80 wRC+ player, just that he'd still be a decent starter. Teams try to upgrade on two win players, but teams are (or should be) comfortable with those guys even if their value comes disproportionately from their defense. You're also skewing the sample by looking at guys with wRC+s of 79 and lower. There are a bunch of guys with wRC+s in the low 80s that meet your criteria-- think Leonys Martin (80), Andrelton Simmons, Michael Bourn (81), Stephen Drew, Alberto Callaspo (82), J.J. Hardy, Ruben Tejada (83).
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Post by larrycook on Sept 20, 2015 21:45:30 GMT -5
Seems like the pitchers like the thought of Bradley patrolling center field as much as they like the idea of rameriez on the bench,
I think if Bradley can hit .240 bang 10 or so taters and 50 rbi's then his glove makes him a must have in center field.
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Post by mandelbro on Sept 20, 2015 22:35:05 GMT -5
I never said that he would be a surefire lock as a starter if he were an 80 wRC+ player, just that he'd still be a decent starter. Teams try to upgrade on two win players, but teams are (or should be) comfortable with those guys even if their value comes disproportionately from their defense. You're also skewing the sample by looking at guys with wRC+s of 79 and lower. There are a bunch of guys with wRC+s in the low 80s that meet your criteria-- think Leonys Martin (80), Andrelton Simmons, Michael Bourn (81), Stephen Drew, Alberto Callaspo (82), J.J. Hardy, Ruben Tejada (83). I read your post and the one you quoted, and drew a similar conclusion from both: *There are a bunch of low-end starters who profile similarly to a hypothetical "Jackie Bradley who is just good enough to stick". *Is Bradley "good enough to stick" with a .660 OPS? Sure. So is Leonys Martin or Michael Bourn. Martin is a good and underrated player - over whom no one is salivating. *Framing the debate around "good enough to stick" is not particularly interesting. A top 5 offense edition of the Bosox is going to have to be 10% above league average. This means having a plethora of above average (say 110 wrC+ or better) offensive players. *That Bradley can hack it as a 80 wRC+ guy is better than nothing. The real question is whether he is part of the solution to that top-5 offense, the problem, or somewhere in between. Because that informs how we have to build the rest of the team to get there. I would bet on solution - 95 wRC+ combined with his sublime defense. But people are throwing around these putrid offensive benchmarks without considering how they affect overall team construction.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Sept 20, 2015 22:37:22 GMT -5
The latest chart for Bradley as he returns to Earth (click to expand): The BABIP is going down and with it the OPS, of course. After the explosion he's slowly returning to a more normal range for those batted balls. The steadiest component is, and probably always will be, the walk rate for which the ISOD is the surrogate. The K rate is a concern, something jmei has highlighted a few times, and which others have pointed out. That's back up to around 30%. It doesn't necessarily mean he can't be successful, but it does make it more difficult when nearly a third of his plate appearances are accounted for by those. He does take a lot of strikes, I think that's just his MO, but there are plenty of swings and misses also. Because it seemed to me that he was a lot more effective during the day, than at night, I looked that up. The difference is quite startling, though it might be nothing more than an artifact of the 2015 sample size: Split | G | GS | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | TB | GDP | HBP | SH | SF | IBB | ROE | BAbip | tOPS+ | sOPS+ |
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Night | 38 | 32 | 119 | 99 | 18 | 22 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 12 | 2 | 0 | 17 | 40 | .222 | .336 | .434 | .770 | 43 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | .316 | 74 | 113 | Day | 21 | 19 | 81 | 76 | 20 | 25 | 10 | 2 | 5 | 27 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 20 | .329 | .370 | .711 | 1.081 | 54 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .392 | 134 | 193 |
Especially jarring is the difference in that K rate: 20% 25% during the daytime, 33% at night. If this is more than just random stuff, it brings up the question of how well he sees at night. Something to think about.
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Post by thursty on Sept 21, 2015 6:46:26 GMT -5
Anyway, those are two pretty good counterpoints - if JBJ could put up Pillar-type defensive and offensive numbers, he'd be a useful player; but I think both also offer a cautionary tale. Would Pillar be playing everyday if the Blue Jays weren't the best offense by 100+ runs and there was a ready alternative? This question makes implications that are the exact opposite of correct. In reality, offensive output is mildly nonlinear, such that for a team with an already excellent offense, offensive skills should be weighted HIGHER than defensive skills relative to a team with an average or worse overall offense. Amusing. Of course, your claim is just gibberish. It's meaningless to describe a single dimension as "non-linear", do you even know what a linear function is? It's like writing, "Height is non-linear" - Huh? And of course, the Pillar question implies a non-linear relationship between say team WOBA and runs scored (well actually between some measure of offense and team win value). So go plot team WOBA vs runs scored - maybe you'll learn something.
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 21, 2015 6:58:34 GMT -5
This question makes implications that are the exact opposite of correct. In reality, offensive output is mildly nonlinear, such that for a team with an already excellent offense, offensive skills should be weighted HIGHER than defensive skills relative to a team with an average or worse overall offense. Amusing. Of course, your claim is just gibberish. It's meaningless to describe a single dimension as "non-linear", do you even know what a linear function is? It's like writing, "Height is non-linear" - Huh? And of course, the Pillar question implies a non-linear relationship between say team WOBA and runs scored (well actually between some measure of offense and team win value). So go plot team WOBA vs runs scored - maybe you'll learn something. You must be fun at parties. Why do you have to be so rude? It's possible to disagree with people without being an a-hole.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Sept 21, 2015 7:44:59 GMT -5
A 30% K rate with JBJ's raw power sounds like a collapse waiting to happen IMO. He's a .175 ISO guy tops, but if he's striking out this much long-term, he's going to get exploited so often that he won't even come near that mark. I'm of the belief that if he doesn't significantly cut his Ks, he's not going to hit enough for a team to keep him in the lineup when they're on a cold streak offensively and looking for answers.
I understand and agree that his glove makes him a viable play even if he is a 75 wRC+ guy, but a center fielder hitting like that won't stick in Boston. The fans and media would end up turning on him, he'd be miserable and probably start pressing, and he'd be gone before long. I hope Bradley is a lot better than that and he definitely has that potential as we've seen, but if he's striking out more than 23% of the time, I think he's going to be a below average hitter.
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Post by awall on Sept 22, 2015 6:49:23 GMT -5
My only concern with the OF going into next year is that both JBJ and Castillo seem like guys who could hit .270, which is fine, but they both may have spells of being extremely hot and extremely cold to get there. I'm not sure I want 2/3 guys out there to be that streaky.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Sept 22, 2015 6:53:22 GMT -5
My only concern with the OF going into next year is that both JBJ and Castillo seem like guys who could hit .270, which is fine, but they both may have spells of being extremely hot and extremely cold to get there. I'm not sure I want 2/3 guys out there to be that streaky. I don't think they'll both be here in April, personally.
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Post by jodyreidnichols on Sept 22, 2015 11:05:21 GMT -5
Here's a thought/debate... If you assume JBJ is a sub 100 wRC+ guy (80-90), and Christian Vazquez is similar, is the offense top heavy enough to have multiple low offense high defense guys in the starting 9? I tend to think both of them can get to league average 100 wRC+ within 2 years, which would make this point moot, let alone the aspect of Swihart getting the bulk of the starts behind the plate. But having to bad offensive players in the bottom of the order would be a lot to overcome if they aren't anywhere close to league average Keep in mind that so far this year; an AL catcher hits 230/293/383 & an AL CenterFielder hits 265/323/408 and while I know you are using wRC+ it's comparing it to the average player when C and CF are two positions known as defensive positions and there is the flaw, as I see it, in comparing these players to the league rather than players who play the same position in their league. The average wRC+ for AL Catchers is 83, so the bar is allready set that low, great defense and the same offense is a very valuable catcher but the offense as with all young catchers should improve over time. The average wRC+ for AL CF'ers is 99.Vasquez almost assuredly would bat 8th (or so) and his wRC+ of 70 on his initial 200 PA in MLB is very likely to increase. JBJ is @ 135 this year and his whole minor league career has been well above that too, it has ranged from 127 to 181 with 1 exception 2014 and when one considers that the sample of 5 4 (his first yr is SSS and should not be counted) years a reasonable person would assume that 2014 was the outlier. If JBJ does not sustain his slash lines then his SLG% would be the one most likely to decline based on his history however there is reason to believe his BA is for real and his OBP especially. I'd be surprised if he's below 100 but even if he falls down to 90 with his defense he's still very valuable. The argument used to be can they hit enough to be valuable now it's they were lucky, can they sustain it?. With young players given 1,000 at bats the should improve at least up until that point saying otherwise is just being pessimistic unless you have cause to believe otherwise.
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