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Jackie Bradley looks like the Red Sox’s center fielder of the future after all
Tuesday’s Say Hey, Baseball recognizes Bradley’s improvement, Stephen Strasburg’s extension, and more Bartolo Colon firsts we want to see.
Winslow Townson-USA TODAY Sports
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At the start of 2015, Jackie Bradley Jr. looked like he was one more failed attempt in the majors away from being passed over or traded by the Red Sox. He was awful in a short stint as a rookie in 2013, and then had the worst OPS+ of anyone with at least 400 plate appearances in 2014. Throughout it all, his glove shone through, though, and he was still only 25 heading into 2015, so the Sox weren’t ready to give up on him. Teams tried to pry Bradley from Boston -- including Dave Dombrowski’s Tigers back when he was with them instead of with the Sox as he is today -- but then-general manager Ben Cherington held on.
It paid off in late-2015, when Bradley seemed to take a step forward with his pitch recognition and appeared to finally have a plan at the plate. He wasn’t letting pitchers control his plate appearances from start to finish anymore, and his ability to finally recognize breaking balls off the plate and fastballs inside helped him show off more power than anyone imagined he’d have in the majors. Since reappearing in the bigs in 2015, Bradley has hit .267/.340/.515 with Gold Glove-caliber defense, and his 140 OPS+ in that stretch ranks 40th in the league instead of dead last.
Bradley is leading the AL in triples, with four, hit a grand slam for his fourth homer of the season on Monday, and has shaved his strikeout rate down another few percentage points to make his success that much more believable. He played well enough last year that the Sox felt they could trade top prospect and center fielder Manuel Margot for Craig Kimbrel, and Bradley is playing well enough now that another center fielder -- 2015’s seventh overall pick, Andrew Benintendi -- might need to figure out how to play the Green Monster before too long. From replacement level to building block, Bradley might finally be what the Sox thought he’d turn into. It just took a lot longer than expected.
- J.T. Realmuto made the one mistake you can't after hitting a homer: he passed a teammate on the basepaths, which means he had a single instead of a two-run homer, and actually cost the Marlins an out.
- The Nationals locked Stephen Strasburg up with a seven-year, $175 million deal, and you probably shouldn't look at next year's available free agent pitchers because your eyeballs are going to melt now that Stras is off the list.
- The Nationals have solidified their rotation for years to come by making sure Strasburg stayed with the team that drafted him.
- Of course, Strasburg is a risk thanks to his health and occasional ineffectiveness, so you could argue that the Nationals saved teams like the Phillies from themselves, too.
- Bryce Harper was thrown out of Monday's game for complaining about balls and strikes. While he was in the dugout. For pitches thrown to another player. That's pretty lame, so understandably, when the Nats won with a walk-off homer, before Harper could even make it to the clubhouse he ran onto the field to celebrate but made sure to cuss out the ump first.
- With John Danks gone, Miguel Gonzalez has earned an encore in the White Sox rotation.
- The Red Sox offered Rich Hill a contract this winter, but they couldn't offer him the guaranteed rotation spot the A's could. It's worked out for both sides, though, as Hill's absence helped push Steven Wright up the depth charts, and he's been excellent in his own right this spring.
- Bartolo Colon hit a homer this weekend, and these are the other firsts he could bless us with.
- Michael Saunders tried to catch a foul ball, but instead, it bounced off of his head. Baseball is hard, y'all.
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