Pilgrim said:Weird that you should say this because I came here to say the opposite. What are we defining as "his tear?"
Hes been at 22.8 in August. (and 17% BB rate!! .391 ISO!!!) Thats actually kind of a disappointing contact rate based on how hes done in Pawtucket, but its still pretty damn acceptable considering his profile.
I dont even know what to make of the power. Last year I'd scarcely believe he could hit an oppo bomb off the pitching machine, tonight he did it off one of the best pitchers in baseball. This is a crazy steak and I'm loving it.
Pilgrim said:http://m.redsox.mlb.com/bos/video/v387360483/clebos-bradley-jr-connects-for-a-threerun-homer/?team_id=111
Someone can GIF this and a bunch of other stuff from this game, but there is his dinger.
A lot of times, guys can go on big tears because they have fixed a hole in their swing and pitchers haven't adapted. JBJ has hit a bunch of balls this month based on the fact that pitchers are still busting him inside, aiming for a hole that he has closed up.
This is even better, a bomb off a decent fastball, on the outside corner, that he crushed.
In the games leading up to that I recall him having a lot of good at-bats with bad outcomes. You could probably go back to his callup and find more evidence that things had changed, even if the real production didn't start till later.nvalvo said:
I was defining it as since August 6, when his OPS bottomed out. He *really* got going a few games later.
You didn't.StuckOnYouk said:Here's the catch, hopefully I did it right
http://m.redsox.mlb.com/bos/video/topic/8878860/v387146983/cle-bos-bradley-jr-jumps-makes-great-grab-at-track
Sorry about the small ad at the beginning, I'm not that smart.
Love Dombrowski with the "WOW" after the play happens...DO NOT TRADE THIS MAN
threecy said:If the toe tap was indeed the change that made the difference, he should hopefully be considered untouchable now.
Madmartigan said:This is interesting -- JBJ was still using the toe tap as recently as July in AAA:
http://www.milb.com/multimedia/vpp.jsp?content_id=285007983&sid=milb
I wonder what/who prompted the change once he was recalled to the majors. If Bradley has finally settled on the "right" mechanics, and only just recently, then maybe he can be even better than what he's shown in the minors to date (.853 OPS this year). Or maybe this is all some random, mostly unsustainable hot streak like his 2013 spring training. I sure hope not.
Pilgrim said:Hes been at 22.8 in August. (and 17% BB rate!! .391 ISO!!!) Thats actually kind of a disappointing contact rate based on how hes done in Pawtucket, but its still pretty damn acceptable considering his profile.
NDame616 said:To those who don't want to trade him, I ask what do you expect our OF to be next year? We have no real evidence that the Red Sox are really considering moving Hanley to 1B, and I'd say for better or worse Castillo and Hanley have locked in the corner OF spots with Mookie at cF.
I have a feeling all this hot streak is doing is increasing his trade value this offseason....
I think there are two viable options. First is that JBJ would start the year as the 4th outfielder. People get hurt, people need time off, etc, and he could be a real asset there and still get plenty of playing time.NDame616 said:To those who don't want to trade him, I ask what do you expect our OF to be next year? We have no real evidence that the Red Sox are really considering moving Hanley to 1B, and I'd say for better or worse Castillo and Hanley have locked in the corner OF spots with Mookie at cF.
I have a feeling all this hot streak is doing is increasing his trade value this offseason....
Why trade Betts if you can find a taker for Pedroia, and just put Betts at his real position and keep Bradley up the middle? Or is Pedroia untradeable?Bob Montgomery's Helmet Hat said:I think there are two viable options. First is that JBJ would start the year as the 4th outfielder. People get hurt, people need time off, etc, and he could be a real asset there and still get plenty of playing time.
The other option, as unsettling as it may be, is that Mookie could be the centerpiece of a blockbuster trade. Mookie is the kind of talent that could land you Chris Sale or Matt Harvey.
Again, you don't trade Betts just to unclog a logjam. You trade him because he's the kind of talent that could land you a Sale or Harvey.The X Man Cometh said:Why trade Betts if you can find a taker for Pedroia, and just put Betts at his real position and keep Bradley up the middle? Or is Pedroia untradeable?
The X Man Cometh said:Why trade Betts if you can find a taker for Pedroia, and just put Betts at his real position and keep Bradley up the middle? Or is Pedroia untradeable?
Red(s)HawksFan said:
Perhaps because Betts is the piece that will get the team what it wants (if it is a Harvey/Sale type) and Pedroia wouldn't?
Whether the ownership/FO is willing to move Pedroia or not is irrelevant, at least in a discussion like this. The question is whether a 32-year-old second baseman, signed long-term and with a tendency to get banged up quite often, is a valuable trade chip or not.
To follow on with this, there's typically 100 games or more for OF not in the top three, so having four good OF isn't a problem, it's a necessity. (Whether they in fact would have four good OF, and whether Hanley is really an OF at all, is another matter)Bob Montgomery's Helmet Hat said:I think there are two viable options. First is that JBJ would start the year as the 4th outfielder. People get hurt, people need time off, etc, and he could be a real asset there and still get plenty of playing time.
Ugh, I would hate this so much. Betts is already arguably the best player on the team (1st in bWAR with 4.1; Holt is #2 at 3.2) and he doesn't turn 23 until October. You have to give up something to get something, but giving up your best player when he is super-young and cost-controlled strikes me as taking two steps backward to take one step forward.Bob Montgomery's Helmet Hat said:The other option, as unsettling as it may be, is that Mookie could be the centerpiece of a blockbuster trade. Mookie is the kind of talent that could land you Chris Sale or Matt Harvey.
The X Man Cometh said:
I guess I'd rather have the 22 year old star at a key defensive position, who is a non-Boras client for that matter, than trade him and his surplus value for the privilege to keep the 32 year old.
If you're going to spend inefficiently, why not do it directly on a pitcher in real dollars, rather than indirectly in the form of Betts' surplus value?
Red(s)HawksFan said:
I think you misunderstand. It's not about keeping Pedroia over Betts in this instance. It's about the fact that Pedroia has a fraction of the trade value that Betts does, and if the idea is to trade for a young, cost-controlled ace-type pitcher such as Harvey or Sale, Betts is the piece that could get the deal done. Pedroia wouldn't.
Yeah, it would be tough to swallow. My point is simply that there aren't many young, elite, cost-controlled pitchers around, and if one became available, Mookie is the type of talent who could land one. And JBJ being legit could make the Sox, at least, think about it.Super Nomario said:Ugh, I would hate this so much. Betts is already arguably the best player on the team (1st in bWAR with 4.1; Holt is #2 at 3.2) and he doesn't turn 23 until October. You have to give up something to get something, but giving up your best player when he is super-young and cost-controlled strikes me as taking two steps backward to take one step forward.
ehaz said:
Yes, but Betts has easily been the best all around player on this team. At ages 21 and 22 he's now had a full seasons worth of ABs proving he can hit at the major league level. So now we'll trade 5 years of his prime + prospects for Sale, whose left arm looks like it could literally fly into the stands with any pitch? Based on what, 60 plate appearances by Bradley?
I'm not down with trading a young potential star hitter for a pitcher due to the high risk of injury.Red(s)HawksFan said:
I think you misunderstand. It's not about keeping Pedroia over Betts in this instance. It's about the fact that Pedroia has a fraction of the trade value that Betts does, and if the idea is to trade for a young, cost-controlled ace-type pitcher such as Harvey or Sale, Betts is the piece that could get the deal done. Pedroia wouldn't.
This is more than just a change in stance. His entire motion was a problem due in large part to the extra toe tap. I think it also could explain why he could hit at lower levels, but with MLB scouting and pitching, he was about as bad as could be. Just by virtue of timing alone, the toe tap had him already committed before the pitch was delivered, and for no productive reason. It also appeared to rob him of power, as his lower body drive was messed up from it.iayork said:
Players change their batting stance/motion all the time. Sometimes things get better, sometimes things get worse, sometimes things stay the same. The player will always credit the change, but most of the time it's just chance. How many times have we seen a mediocre player have a good week, explain how he changed his stance, and then promptly regress back to his career mediocrity even with the new stance? Most of it is just superstition.
Sometimes, a change may actually fix something. There's always Bautista. But outside of Bautista, there aren't many examples of long-term improvements from changes in the majors. (Changes in the minors are much more likely to be fixing a fundamental issue than changes in the majors, of course.)
That's not to say changing a stance is always pointless. If it boosts a player's confidence, or makes him feel like he can be more (or less) aggressive, the psychological impact could well be huge.
So I wouldn't put much stock in Bradley's stance change being the cause of his recent breakout. More likely, this is a talented kid, who is capable of hitting major-league batting, having a run of good luck that's offsetting the run of bad luck he had earlier. He's not going to OPS 1.500 for his career, but he's not going to OPS .400 either. But his minor-league numbers are perfectly consistent with him being an .800-ish batter going forward.
Right, it's almost writing on the wall that Hanley is going to be moved. I mean, it's actually pretty amazing how candid DD is being about it. I think if you can procure value from Bradley then you do it, but I don't think he's going to fetch more than his actual value. I don't think you can trade Bett's unless its something really really special, and i just don't see it happening.smastroyin said:The biggest obstacle is trying to make use of Hanley Ramirez, but it sounds like they will do what they can to not have to worry about him next year.
The next this is whether you can extract better value to the team by trading a CF to a team that needs one while finding a corner OF for a lower price elsewhere. Or, trying to find a JD Martinez type who is a decent but not able to play CF type OF with a better bat. etc.
Either of these things are hard to do, of course. And for now probably better off sticking with keeping what they have going into the year.
But saying that there is no relationship between K rate and wOBA among different hitters, and saying that an individual hitter would not be likely to change his wOBA by changing his K rate, are two different things, no?smastroyin said:Anyway, here is k-rate vs. wOBA for the top 20 k-rates in the league this year for hitters. There is literally no relationship here.
SouthernBoSox said:Right, it's almost writing on the wall that Hanley is going to be moved. I mean, it's actually pretty amazing how candid DD is being about it. I think if you can procure value from Bradley then you do it, but I don't think he's going to fetch more than his actual value. I don't think you can trade Bett's unless its something really really special, and i just don't see it happening.
Buzzkill Pauley said:
DDski's clearly visible "wow" after Bradley somehow pulled in Lindor's easy 1st-inning 2B (and likely more, depending on the carom), when combined with JBJ's depressed trade valuation due to his horrific batting line from last season, leads me to conclude he won't be traded this winter.
He's too magnificent a fielder to be just a throw-in to a bigger deal. But even if he continues to show the current pop that goes oppo over the Monster and sends Chisenhall to the bullpen wall, he'll still have last year's failure as an albatross hanging around his neck. So he can't realistically be a centerpiece to bring back value either, the way the other three OF options might.
My take on DDski's comments is that he's letting it be known to Hanley that he can either return to the infield, or he'll be sent to another team. Maybe both.
The X Man Cometh said:Why trade Betts if you can find a taker for Pedroia, and just put Betts at his real position and keep Bradley up the middle? Or is Pedroia untradeable?
I still dont get why the Sox would trade anything of value for frontline pitching when you have three top starters hitting FA this offseason. I keep seeing that bandied about and it makes zero sense to me.jscola85 said:
Much as DD may love JBJ, he sits in a position of depth for this team. What it may mean is that DD could be more willing to trade one of him, Betts and Castillo in tandem with one of Swihart/Vazquez in order to reel in some frontline pitching.
Trlicek's Whip said:
Should we pin the "Pedroia has a full no-trade clause" link at this point, or is Bradford's article inaccurate?
Savin Hillbilly said:But saying that there is no relationship between K rate and wOBA among different hitters, and saying that an individual hitter would not be likely to change his wOBA by changing his K rate, are two different things, no?
K rate correlates more or less randomly with wOBA because it's only one of several components that may not be entirely independent, but don't correlate consistently either. For instance, among the current top 10 in MLB K rate there are ISOs ranging from .128 to .288, BB rates ranging from 5.2% to 16.3%, and BABIPs ranging from .225 to .357. As a result, it's not surprising that the wOBAs are also all over the map (.283 to .384).
But if any individual hitter reduces his K rate from, say, 28% to 23%, should we assume that other components of his offense will deteriorate proportionally, leaving his wRC+ unchanged? It's possible, of course, but is there any reason to assume it as a default? It seems counterintuitive.
Well, someone might argue that you might be looking at ceiling effect for the relationship between K-rate and wOBA. It probably would have made more sense to simply include all qualified players, instead of just the 20 with the worst K-rates. Of course, your claim is still accurate; the proportion of variance in wOBA explained by K-rate is about half a percent across all qualified MLB hitters. By way of comparison, BABIP explains about 17 percent of the variance in wOBA.smastroyin said:I understand in a sense why people obsess with the K-rate, but I feel like a lot of projections are made based on k-rate that assume a pretty simple input/output relationship which I don't think actually exists. People seem to want to apply the same types of combination of component/rate stats to pitchers and hitters in similar fashion and frankly that doesn't work either.
As an example, if a batter strikes out more because they are actually becoming more selective and making less weak contact, they can improve their output while this input goes up. Whereas a pitcher hardly ever gets worse as their k-rate goes up, at least in the long run. This is because batters have a lot more control over their BABIP than pitchers do. And it's why all advanced metrics like SIERA and FIP include k rate for pitchers while advanced metrics for hitters do not distinguish the type of out.
Anyway, here is k-rate vs. wOBA for the top 20 k-rates in the league this year for hitters. There is literally no relationship here. Of course there is a selection bias as this only includes qualifying players which means there are a bunch of scrubs with high k-rates who don't merit playing time, but those data points obfuscate the data as much as clarify it, so I'll accept the bias.
Although linear analysis is used to identify components underlying a composite score of hitting, it is important to keep in mind that these things do not operate linearly. Changing one's K-rate may be an indication that the strategy has changed; however, the effect on wOBA will likely not be caused nor even predicted by the K-rate change.Savin Hillbilly said:But saying that there is no relationship between K rate and wOBA among different hitters, and saying that an individual hitter would not be likely to change his wOBA by changing his K rate, are two different things, no?
K rate correlates more or less randomly with wOBA because it's only one of several components that may not be entirely independent, but don't correlate consistently either. For instance, among the current top 10 in MLB K rate there are ISOs ranging from .128 to .288, BB rates ranging from 5.2% to 16.3%, and BABIPs ranging from .225 to .357. As a result, it's not surprising that the wOBAs are also all over the map (.283 to .384).
But if any individual hitter reduces his K rate from, say, 28% to 23%, should we assume that other components of his offense will deteriorate proportionally, leaving his wRC+ unchanged? It's possible, of course, but is there any reason to assume it as a default? It seems counterintuitive.
timlinin8th said:I still dont get why the Sox would trade anything of value for frontline pitching when you have three top starters hitting FA this offseason. I keep seeing that bandied about and it makes zero sense to me.
Enjoy you OF depth that is cost controlled, clear salary by trading one of Hanley or Panda if you must. But trading any one of JBJ, Betts or Castillo at this point is crazy. You've got three pieces to one of the best outfields possible right now, and if the bats come around thats gravy.
As these guys have played better the offense has been much improved as well. This OF doesn't need the classic "hide a big bat at LF" type, even though thats what we're accustomed to.
shoebox91 said:I truly believe the way that the situation plays out is that they will trade either Hanley or Panda and the other one plays 3B. JBJ, Betts, and Rusney will be the starting OF in 16.
Who Plays 1B in this situation? I love what Shaw's done so far, but I'm not sure you can go with him as a starting 1b in 2016. I think that unless you can either move Hanley or Panda and clear a ton of salary in the situation or if Hanley is vehemently opposed to returning to the IF you have to go with whatever Hanley/Panda combo at the corners you think is better defensively.shoebox91 said:I truly believe the way that the situation plays out is that they will trade either Hanley or Panda and the other one plays 3B. JBJ, Betts, and Rusney will be the starting OF in 16.
WenZink said:
The reason the Sox would trade for pitching, rather than sign FA is the luxury tax..(CBT) Exceed the salary cap for more than 3 years in a row, and you're assessed a 50% penalty for all salaries above the cap limit. Simple as that.
Moving H. Ramirez and/or Sandoval, won't give you much cap relief if you have to pick up a good part of their salaries. So, it makes all the sense in the world to deal away part of your surplus of 3 outfielders that can play center field.