Jackie Bradley, Jr. - Help

ScubaSteveAvery

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The title was originally "Jackie Bradley Jr: Trouble with the Curve" but I couldn't quote a terrible move so...
 
Using the same Tim Britton piece as I did to start the Bogaerts thread, I noticed the team had a worse observation on Bradley so far.  While Bogaerts was merely cheating on outside pitches and pulling them, Bradley was completely lost:
 
Bradley has had similar issues at the plate, dating back to his big-league experience last year. The outfielder’s problems with fastballs in have been discussed ad nauseam, to the point that he began cheating in — and thus rolling over pitches on the outer half that he usually hits with authority the other way.
 
For a stretch in late April, Bradley was doing just that: In a four-game stretch late in the month, he had six hits, including four doubles and a triple. He has just two extra-base hits in 14 games since.
 
Bradley was candid when discussing how he feels at the plate after Friday’s loss.
 
“I’m lost,” he said. “I’m not getting the results that I want, and I’m sure it’s not the results they want …. You have to go back to the drawing board.”
 
 
It is never good when a hitter flat out says "I'm lost" and " need to go back to the drawing board.  Britton mentioned that the problems with fastballs, but when looking at Bradley's charts, his problem isn't the fastball at all - its the curve ball in the particular.  Out of the 58 curve balls that Bradley has seen this year, he was swung at 40% of them.  When he does swing, he whiffs 57% of the time. When he makes contact, 80% of them are ground balls and 20% are fly balls. He has one hit off of a curve ball, which was a double.  This doesn't even touch on Bradley's problems with breaking pitches generally:
 
All charts in this post are from Brooks Baseball.
 

 
While a .250 BA and .369 SLG isn't great, at least he hits "hard" pitches (Fourseam, sinker, cutter). On offspeed pitches (changeup, splitter, screwball), he struggles quite a bit as well, but swings and misses less - 38% on the change and 25% on the splitter.  But the breaking balls (curve, slow curve, slider, knuckler) decimate him.  The curve ball is especially troubling for him.
He doesn't generate any line drives with them.  He rarely gets them airborne too. Sliders give him a ton of trouble too.  He swings at way more sliders (58%), but whiffs at less of them when compared to curves.  He still hits sliders for mainly ground balls (45% per BIP) and fly balls (36% per BIP). 
 
Speaking of ground balls, the issue of extreme ground ball rates only accelerated in May:
 

 

 
From the two charts above, you can see that hard and breaking pitches, the ground balls per balls in play has skyrocketed.  The only reason offspeed didn't' go up was because it was an already ridiculous 67%. The big change from April to May is that now he's just pounding everything into the ground, with most of hit weakly and fielded on the grass of the infield.  When looking at ground balls per handedness, RHP pitchers have been inducing the most ground balls. One in every two balls put in play from RHP were hit on the ground in April. That ratio jumped to 63% in May.  LHP have also started having more success getting ground balls from Bradley, going form 35% to 50% over the course of a month. 
 
The whiff rates have also started climbing up over the duration of the season too:
 

 
On hard and offspeed pitches, Bradley Jr is swinging and missing a lot more. What is troubling with offspeed pitches is that he cut his swing rate in half in May, but increased his whiff rate by 5%. However, his swing rate on both hard and breaking pitches increased by around 4% each in May.  Both of these point to a complete breakdown in approach. Swinging more, whiffing more, and hitting more ground balls.  This isn't that big of a revelation, since Bradley Jr. admitted it himself.  But I wanted to take a closer look at the curve balls.  Curve balls are hard to hit because they break a lot and through different planes; however, they are still distinct pitch.  They aren't like a sinker, splitter, or change, that mimic a fastball until they don't (either by dropping or being slower with similar deceptive arm action).  Most curves don't even look like sliders, unless they are the tweener "slurves."  I've felt that his susceptability has to be due to two things: being behind in the count and expanding the zone and bad pitch recognition, leading to swinging at bad pitches.  
 

 
The first chart shows that his distribution of hard pitches is the same when facing both RHP and LHP.  However, lefties feed him more breaking balls, while righties throw him more offspeed pitches.  This makes sense because breaking pitches break away to LHBs from LHPs, while the opposite is true for RHP.  Lefties love feeding Bradley Jr. breaking pitches when they are both ahead in the count and have two strikes.  His issues of lack of pitch recognition and expansion of the zone when behind is the perfect combination for pitchers. For RHPs, they more evenly mix up breaking and offspeed with ahead and when they have two strikes. I think the same reasoning applies here. Oddly enough with two strikes they go way more toward breaking pitches than offspeed, which is opposite when they are merely ahead in the count where the distribution is even.
 
When isolating just curves, we see that lefties go one place with them - down and away:
 

 
 
Right-handed pitches vary the location much more.  They either try and back-door the curve ball, or throw them low and out the zone to all parts of the plate:
 

 
What is clear though is that a vast majority of the curve balls thrown by both LHP and RHP are thrown out the zone and for balls. Based on his scouting report and his MiLB track record, you would expect Bradley Jr. to lay off those pitches and force pitchers to throw curves in the zone for strikes, or revert to something else much more hittable.  Instead, all he has done this year is chase:
 

 
Luckily, he doesn't chase much when LHP try and drop one down and away.  But everywhere else he expands the zone down.  Another issue with him chasing those pitches is that he doesn't foul very many off. He has only fouled off 8.6% of them compared to whiffing on 22.4% of them. This is much different than compared to the slider, where he whiffs on 24%, but at least fouls off twice as many (17%).  His problem with the slider is hitting them for so many ground balls (45% GB/BIP ratio for sliders).  Here is his whiff chart for curves:
 

 
And here you see the downfalls of expanding the zone.  When he swings at those in the zone he at least makes contact a majority of the time.  But when he chases outside of the zone on curves, he misses at least 50% of the time, but more like 80% of the time.  This is exactly why RHPs get away with throwing him more breaking pitches when at 2 strikes - he will likely expand the zone and miss.  At the worst, there is an 80% chance that if he does make contact, it will simply be a ground ball. 
 
LHPs opt more for the slider against him:
 

 

 
When sliders are thrown down and middle-away outside of the zone, Bradley Jr swings 70.6% (12 of 17) of the time.  Of the times he swings, he misses 58.3% (7 of 12) of the time. This is atrocious for pitches that are balls. The sliders from LHP are more varied in location than curves, but he can't lay off the slider from LHPs.  Essentially, the LHP have two weapons: curve down in the zone generally, and sliders down and away. 
 
I think the articles (and possible FO's) focus on his troubles with fastballs ignore that the fastball is the least of Bradley Jr's problems.  He absolutely cannot handle breaking pitches.  LHPs get him to expand by going down and away with sliders, while RHPs get him to expand down with curve balls. This to me is the most troubling part.  He is having trouble recognizing breaking pitches from both LHPs and RHPs.  And it is not just one type of pitch, but two. His issue simply isn't cheating on pitches to pull them over the short left field (like Bogaerts), it is simply recognizing breaking pitch is coming and adjusting accordingly. The fact that he is expanding the zone so much is evidence to me that he can't adjust and instead swings because he thinks it will fall for a streak, or won't break as much as it does. The FO needs to get him to lay off so many pitches.  To do this he needs to learn to recognize him.  If Bradley can work himself back into better hitters counts due to laying off garbage down in the zone, I think he will immediately start seeing more fastballs that he can handle.  At the very least the pitcher will elevate the breaking pitch more, increasing the risk of it being hittable, or even better, hanging one that can be crushed.  
 
I'd be curious to know if the reason he has stayed up is because he needs exposure to major league breaking balls.  I wonder if the quality if breaking ball is worse in AAA, so much so that he can easily lay off of them? That may be one explanation for why we must endure his struggles at the plate on a nightly basis. 
 

AbbyNoho

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ScubaSteveAvery said:
T
I'd be curious to know if the reason he has stayed up is because he needs exposure to major league breaking balls.  I wonder if the quality if breaking ball is worse in AAA, so much so that he can easily lay off of them? That may be one explanation for why we must endure his struggles at the plate on a nightly basis. 
 
His presence on the major league team may be more about his defensive value to the team than his offensive development regarding breaking pitches.
 

ScubaSteveAvery

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Andrew said:
 
His presence on the major league team may be more about his defensive value to the team than his offensive development regarding breaking pitches.
 
That is fair.  I probably should have phrased that sentence better. 
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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The three curveball strikeout in the fourth (I think) yesterday against Buehrle was really case in point. He just didn't look like he had a chance of making contact on any of the three pitches. He looked completely and totally overmatched. 
 

nvalvo

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The OP suggests that Bradley is doomed because he can't hit curves, but isn't it more likely that his current struggles with breaking pitches are a product of the adjustments he made to deal with inside heat? That he overcompensated, and now he'll have to balance it out.
 
He couldn't have torn up AA the way he did without being able to hit breaking pitches. 
 

EricFeczko

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Excellent post, Scuba.

I have to agree with nalvo here to some degree. It sounds more like he's cheating on the fastballs and its preventing him from making contact with stuff thrown away and low (i.e. curveballs and breaking-balls). However, if this is true, then the location of fastballs should still be mostly inside, and Bradley should show similar problems with fastballs that are on the outside part of the plate.

That being said, I wonder if part of Bradley's struggles relate to sequencing. In looking at the pitch chart above, it seems like the majority of his first pitches are fastballs (which is unsurprising), and if that's a strike, he's more likely to see a breaking ball. So, he sees a hard pitch, biases himself towards the hard stuff (due to his own perception of problems with the fastball), and then has trouble reacting to non-hard stuff (e.g. curveballs). 
 
Unfortunately, I don't know if we have a large enough sample size to determine this, but does Bradley have a bigger problem when a curveball is thrown after a fastball and vice versa? If Bradley has a general problem recognizing pitches due to sequencing, he should have higher whiff rates for fastballs thrown after a curveball and curveballs thrown after a fastball, than if the same pitch is thrown twice in a row.
 


 
 

Just a bit outside

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nvalvo said:
The OP suggests that Bradley is doomed because he can't hit curves, but isn't it more likely that his current struggles with breaking pitches are a product of the adjustments he made to deal with inside heat? That he overcompensated, and now he'll have to balance it out.
 
He couldn't have torn up AA the way he did without being able to hit breaking pitches. 
I agree with this and it goes back to his initial scouting report when he was drafted.  The following is from soxprospects.com in 2012. http://www.soxprospects.com/players/bradley-jackie.htm
 
[SIZE=8pt]Swing has slight upward plane through the hitting zone, but is a little on the long side. Can struggle with balls on the inner third due to over-extension.[/SIZE]
It seems that he is overcompensating and starting his swing early.
 

ScubaSteveAvery

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nvalvo said:
The OP suggests that Bradley is doomed because he can't hit curves, but isn't it more likely that his current struggles with breaking pitches are a product of the adjustments he made to deal with inside heat? That he overcompensated, and now he'll have to balance it out.
 
He couldn't have torn up AA the way he did without being able to hit breaking pitches. 
 
I don't think I mentioned that he's doomed if he can't hit them. He's doomed if he can't recognize them and lay off of them.  I think the quality of breaking pitches is less in the minors so they are easier to hit because they are flatter, or easier to lay off because they are badly located. 
 
EricFeczko said:
Excellent post, Scuba.

I have to agree with nalvo here to some degree. It sounds more like he's cheating on the fastballs and its preventing him from making contact with stuff thrown away and low (i.e. curveballs and breaking-balls). However, if this is true, then the location of fastballs should still be mostly inside, and Bradley should show similar problems with fastballs that are on the outside part of the plate.

That being said, I wonder if part of Bradley's struggles relate to sequencing. In looking at the pitch chart above, it seems like the majority of his first pitches are fastballs (which is unsurprising), and if that's a strike, he's more likely to see a breaking ball. So, he sees a hard pitch, biases himself towards the hard stuff (due to his own perception of problems with the fastball), and then has trouble reacting to non-hard stuff (e.g. curveballs). 
 
Unfortunately, I don't know if we have a large enough sample size to determine this, but does Bradley have a bigger problem when a curveball is thrown after a fastball and vice versa? If Bradley has a general problem recognizing pitches due to sequencing, he should have higher whiff rates for fastballs thrown after a curveball and curveballs thrown after a fastball, than if the same pitch is thrown twice in a row.
 

 
 
I pulled his fastball distributions:
 

 
Most of the fastballs are outside or over the middle of plate, so he's not being pounded inside. 
 

 
He does whiff more on outside fastballs, which could indicate cheating on them to an extent. 
 
The one thing that suggests that he isn't cheating, or if he is he isn't good at it, is that most of the fastballs are hit to the opposite field:
 

 
I could be wrong, but if he was cheating on the fastball wouldn't we expect to see more of them pulled to RF?
 

nvalvo

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ScubaSteveAvery said:
 
I don't think I mentioned that he's doomed if he can't hit them. He's doomed if he can't recognize them and lay off of them.  I think the quality of breaking pitches is less in the minors so they are easier to hit because they are flatter, or easier to lay off because they are badly located. 
 
 
 
Fair enough. Your strikezone breakdowns have been most informative. 
 
But I look at Bradley right now (I'm a huge fan, FYI) and I see a guy who's badly in between, who can't trust himself, and ends up frozen on pitches he should hammer. He's not even guessing. He would be scuffling in high A right now.
 
Hopefully they can find him a day off or two to sit down and watch a ton of video, and try to get a handle on how he's being pitched at this level. 
 

mauidano

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nvalvo said:
 
Fair enough. Your strikezone breakdowns have been most informative. 
 
But I look at Bradley right now (I'm a huge fan, FYI) and I see a guy who's badly in between, who can't trust himself, and ends up frozen on pitches he should hammer. He's not even guessing. He would be scuffling in high A right now.
 
Hopefully they can find him a day off or two to sit down and watch a ton of video, and try to get a handle on how he's being pitched at this level. 
Because you know opposing pitchers are watching him and salivating.  News like this travels fast at this level.  C'mon JBJ; let's get right!!
 

RedOctober3829

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I think he's having trouble recognizing the breaking stuff. That extra tenth or two-tenths of a second makes a huge difference between solid contact and no contact at all. That is leaving him to guess what is coming more often and you can't be successful in MLB doing that. It's especially obvious vs. left handed pitching. The only thing that will help is more and more reps.
 

EricFeczko

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Oh, wow. That is some interesting data.

I agree with your interpretation. If he was cheating in on the fastball, he would have trouble with contact on outside fastballs low and away. There's nothing in the plots to suggest that he's having such trouble.

As an aside, I'm not sure I follow your point regarding whether he should be pulling more fastballs to the opposite field; if he's cheating in, then he can't turn on outside fastballs, which should lead to more of them being hit to the opposite field. I don't think this affects your point much though; he's making solid contact to the opposite field, so it doesn't look like the low-and-away fastball is a problem anyways. 

What's surprising about the plots is that he isn't offering on fastballs outside or low in the zone. In fact, he's made contact on fastballs low and away. It suggests that he is capable of recognizing when to swing at fastballs that are on the outside part of the zone and when not to. He's doing the same with the inside part of the plate as well, so he doesn't appear to be cheating in at all. This supports your hypothesis that he is failing to recognize/predict movement on breaking balls.
 
It's important to note that he is having trouble with fastballs in the upper part of the strikezone. He's seen 48 fastballs in the upper part of the plate, has swung at 30 of them (~62.5 percent), and has whiffed on 10 (33 percent). By way of comparison, he's seen 60 fastballs in the lower part of the plate, has swung at 39 of them (~65 percent), and has whiffed on 2 (5.13 percent).
 
This isn't particularly surprising for a left-handed hitter (traditional wisdom being that they hit balls lower in the zone better). Nevertheless, I wonder if his problem with the high fastball is related to his problem with the curveball; an inability to adjust to different planes as opposed to fundamental pitch recognition.


 
 

ScubaSteveAvery

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EricFeczko said:
Oh, wow. That is some interesting data.

I agree with your interpretation. If he was cheating in on the fastball, he would have trouble with contact on outside fastballs low and away. There's nothing in the plots to suggest that he's having such trouble.

As an aside, I'm not sure I follow your point regarding whether he should be pulling more fastballs to the opposite field; if he's cheating in, then he can't turn on outside fastballs, which should lead to more of them being hit to the opposite field. I don't think this affects your point much though; he's making solid contact to the opposite field, so it doesn't look like the low-and-away fastball is a problem anyways. 

What's surprising about the plots is that he isn't offering on fastballs outside or low in the zone. In fact, he's made contact on fastballs low and away. It suggests that he is capable of recognizing when to swing at fastballs that are on the outside part of the zone and when not to. He's doing the same with the inside part of the plate as well, so he doesn't appear to be cheating in at all. This supports your hypothesis that he is failing to recognize/predict movement on breaking balls.
 
It's important to note that he is having trouble with fastballs in the upper part of the strikezone. He's seen 48 fastballs in the upper part of the plate, has swung at 30 of them (~62.5 percent), and has whiffed on 10 (33 percent). By way of comparison, he's seen 60 fastballs in the lower part of the plate, has swung at 39 of them (~65 percent), and has whiffed on 2 (5.13 percent).
 
This isn't particularly surprising for a left-handed hitter (traditional wisdom being that they hit balls lower in the zone better). Nevertheless, I wonder if his problem with the high fastball is related to his problem with the curveball; an inability to adjust to different planes as opposed to fundamental pitch recognition.


 
 
Good stuff EricFeczko.  
 
We may be using "cheating" differently.  I'm using it and thinking about it in terms of starting his swing early, so he would be more likely to pull more pitches if he was 'cheating' since he would be ahead, even on outside pitches.  My guess is that if he's ahead on outside pitches he rolls over them on the end of the bat, creating weak pull contact. I don't think he's necessarily cheating though, just struggling to recognize pitches, which results in more breaking and off speed stuff in disadvantageous counts for him. 
 
Then again, I could be 100% wrong about that interpretation of the spray chart  :)
 
Your last point about failing to adjust to different planes is interesting.  Trouble with high heat and low breaking balls has to be cat nip to pitchers, especially when the batter can't recognize the pitches anyways.  Change eye levels to get in to a  pitchers' count and then expand the zone with two strikes to get the batter to chase. 
 

threecy

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As a Sox fan, I worry when I read stuff like that.  There are oh-too-many promising prospects who couldn't figure out how to hit breaking pitches or big league heat.  He still has some time at 24 (and it being May of his rookie season) to figure it out and be a plus player, but we've seen so many hyped outfielders come up from the farm and not deliver on the hype.  Those Ks are starting to really add up.
 

EricFeczko

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ScubaSteveAvery said:
We may be using "cheating" differently.  I'm using it and thinking about it in terms of starting his swing early, so he would be more likely to pull more pitches if he was 'cheating' since he would be ahead, even on outside pitches.  My guess is that if he's ahead on outside pitches he rolls over them on the end of the bat, creating weak pull contact. I don't think he's necessarily cheating though, just struggling to recognize pitches, which results in more breaking and off speed stuff in disadvantageous counts for him. 
 
Ah. I misinterpreted what you meant.  I was thinking about it in terms of  positioning at the plate, such that JBJ was positioned further away from the plate in the batter's box. Manny used to do this to key in onto inside pitches; the difference was that his swing could cover pitches on the outside part of the plate.
 
 
ScubaSteveAvery said:
 Your last point about failing to adjust to different planes is interesting.  Trouble with high heat and low breaking balls has to be cat nip to pitchers, especially when the batter can't recognize the pitches anyways.  Change eye levels to get in to a  pitchers' count and then expand the zone with two strikes to get the batter to chase. 
Well, I should've said, "along with pitch recognition", but that's exactly what I'm thinking.


 
 

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Since May 1, Jackie Bradley Jr. is hitting .167 with a .233 on-base percentage and has struck out 35 times in 110 plate appearances.
 
Is this a mental thing? I do not remember him having this problem when he was in the minors….
 

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soxhop411 said:
 
Brian MacPherson ‏@brianmacp  29s
Since May 1, Jackie Bradley Jr. is hitting .167 with a .233 on-base percentage and has struck out 35 times in 110 plate appearances.
 
Is this a mental thing? I do not remember him having this problem when he was in the minors….
 
 
I have to wonder if it's a downward spiral. That, if it wasn't a mental thing before, it may be becoming a mental thing.
 

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I think they may have reached the point where even somehow finding a 40 man spot for Corey Brown, or any half decent defensive CF they can scrape up, might be better than continuing to do what they're doing to Bradley.
 

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judyb said:
I think they may have reached the point where even somehow finding a 40 man spot for Corey Brown, or any half decent defensive CF they can scrape up, might be better than continuing to do what they're doing to Bradley.
Doing to Bradley? I know what you mean, but I'd bet if you asked him, he'd say he'd rather stay with it, that getting it might be just around the corner. When Vic gets back, they can at least give him some time off, I mean play Sizemore in center and Vic in right. Whether time off does him any good though, who knows? He must be going through hell. It's all right there for him if he can only hit.
 

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JBJ is the only healthy major league quality outfield defender on the roster. Because of this, he needs to play everyday, growing pains be damned. It's unfortunate because It would certainly be more conducive to repairing his woes at the plate if the rookie could take a day off occasionally to get some instruction and sort things out. Maybe a healthy Shane in RF makes it easier for this to happen.

If not, the A's will eventually acquire him and fix him so he can take over CF from Coco.

Are there any Drew-like outfielder's for rent Ben could throw a 10-spot at to save the day?
 

Sampo Gida

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I think Bradleys biggest problems have been with 2 strikes, just like most hitters . However, he is hitting 134 while league average is 174, so he is doing it worse, and its about 1/2 his AB. 
 
There are 2 areas ways he can improve on his 2 strike performance,   Be more aggressive earlier in the count, and rethink his approach with 2 strikes.  If he is in between, it sounds like he may not be picking up pitches very well, so perhaps he can try to guess more.  That can make you look pretty foolish when you guess wrong but you should do better when you guess right.    If you guess right 50% of the time you have a chance to do pretty well, much better than than a 134 BA anyways.
 
If he cant hit a CB even when he knows its coming, that suggests he either has a mechanical problem with his swing, or he shoud not be in the MLB.  As someone said before, that last one is hard to believe since he could not have put up the numbers he did in AA/AAA w/o being able to hit breaking stuff.
 
This is all easier said than done and coming from a guy who now strikes out in slow pitch softball.  
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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After his third K of the night, Costig noted he had 60 Ks in 180 ABs.

That's shocking.

I heard Tom Caron compare him to Iggy on the radio, but that's bullshit. This kid was 297/404/474 overall in the minors.

404 obp.

And now he strikes out one in every three at bats?
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
I heard Tom Caron compare him to Iggy on the radio, but that's bullshit. This kid was 297/404/474 overall in the minors.

404 obp.

And now he strikes out one in every three at bats?
 
While I understand he's still the best option the RS has, at some point there has to be a risk of losing him as a prospect, doesn't there?  Going up and striking out every third time at the plate has to weigh on him mentally and while I know that the RS love his makeup, you have to wonder how much longer they can let this go on  
 

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MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
404 obp.

And now he strikes out one in every three at bats?
 
There's a bit of a false dichotomy lurking here. Adam Dunn in 2004 had a .388 OBP while striking out in more than 33% of his AB. (AB is the wrong denominator anyway, because it effectively penalizes guys who walk a lot. K per PA is what matters.)
 
Anyway, it's not like you couldn't see this coming. JBJ struck out at about a 20 percent rate in the upper minors. And I think it's pretty routine for K rate to spike a bit when you first hit the majors (though 20 to 29 percent may be a bit extreme). But good hitters are supposed to adjust. JBJ has had 300+ PA now, and we're not seeing much sign of adjustment.
 
As this drags into June, I'm starting to agree with judyb and WBCD. I know elite athletes are supposed to be different, but there's only so much negative reinforcement anybody's confidence can handle--when life keeps telling you "you suck," sooner or later you're going to start taking life's word for it. Who knows if JBJ has gotten to that point yet, but I think it's a legitimate worry. It might really be time for him to do some woodshedding in Pawtucket.
 

epraz

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wade boggs chicken dinner said:
 
While I understand he's still the best option the RS has, at some point there has to be a risk of losing him as a prospect, doesn't there?
 
Sure, but maybe they're losing him as a prospect in the sense that we're learning that he can't cut it in the major leagues.
 

Al Zarilla

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I caught a bit of Farrell's post game, didn't get the reporter's question, but on JBJ, he said that he was contributing in the field, including the great play he made that ended in doubling up Miggy. Farrell also said JBJ's been "one of our better guys hitting with men on base". Sounds to me like he continues to start.
 
ed., and, until at least Vic is available, I'd start him too. OF of Gomes - Sizemore - Nava, throw in some Carp, or Hassan, no thanks. 
 
Wish they had someone doing what Ted Williams used to do, i.e., watch him and tell him what  he might change. 
 

BosRedSox5

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epraz said:
 
Sure, but maybe they're losing him as a prospect in the sense that we're learning that he can't cut it in the major leagues.
 
This kind of bums me out, because I really want Bradley to do well, but this could be right. 

Last year, the comparison was between JBJ and Pedroia. People said "Pedroia stumbled out of the gate too!" and they were right. When he was a 22 year old proto rookie (didn't get enough ABs to void his rookie status hence his ROY the next year), he sucked terribly. He even had a very rough start of the season in 2007 where he had a .522 OPS in March/April. Obviously he turned on the jets in 2007 and was outstanding the rest of the year. 

Anyway, point is, that period of early struggle occured over a period of 163 PAs. Bradley's had 310 PA's in the bigs, almost twice as many. It's definitely possible that the Sox are learning that JBJ just isn't going to cut it... 
 
Obviously, we all hope this isn't the case. As Sox fans, we'd like nothing more than for JBJ to shake off this crappy start and start meeting projections, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. The organization is faced with two options. Send him down for more seasoning or leave him at the ML level to work through his issues. Given the pros and cons for each move, it's a tough call. 
 

BosRedSox5

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Al Zarilla said:
I caught a bit of Farrell's post game, didn't get the reporter's question, but on JBJ, he said that he was contributing in the field, including the great play he made that ended in doubling up Miggy. Farrell also said JBJ's been "one of our better guys hitting with men on base". Sounds to me like he continues to start.
 
Yeah, God only knows where we'd be without JBJ's .286/.345/.429/.774 slash line with RISP. 
 

Doctor G

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Maybe he should take an approach more like AJP. Be more aggressive on first pitch fastballs. The results can't be worse. I have been frustrated watching him swing at pitcher's pitches and laying off  pitches he should be attacking. His approach seems rooted in his experience as a minor league leadoff hitter  trying to see as many pitches as possible.
He is a long way from the hitter he was in his first game at Yankee Stadium  in 2013.
 
Maybe being  encouraged to be as aggressive at the plate as he is in the field will take the chains off his offense  and even his base running.
 

OttoC

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BosRedSox5 said:
 
Yeah, God only knows where we'd be without JBJ's .286/.345/.429/.774 slash line with RISP. 
 
Well, that is better than than the team's performance with RISP (.239/.338/.355/.693) and it represents about 27.6% of his plate appearances, which is slightly higher than the team (26.3%).

 

 

 

 
 

Reverend

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OttoC said:
 
 
Well, that is better than than the team's performance with RISP (.239/.338/.355/.693) and it represents about 27.6% of his plate appearances, which is slightly higher than the team (26.3%).
       
 
 
I was talking about this awhile back, but I don't think people can process the bizarro universe that is--
 
I put it into a table because the board wouldn't accept the link either.
 
[tablegrid= Hitting w/RiSP (sorted by Avg) ]Player AB R H RBI BB SO AVG▼ OBP SLG OPS  Cecchini, G 1 0 1 1 0 0 1.000 1.000 2.000 3.000  Holt, B 18 11 7 10 2 2 .389 .409 .500 .909  Herrera, J 13 7 5 7 1 4 .385 .400 .385 .785  Pierzynski, A 48 12 16 23 3 5 .333 .382 .500 .882  Bradley Jr., J 49 20 14 17 5 15 .286 .345 .429 .774  Middlebrooks, W 18 7 5 6 2 6 .278 .350 .333 .683  Gomes, J 44 15 12 21 7 19 .273 .357 .500 .857  Victorino, S 16 8 4 9 0 3 .250 .263 .313 .576  Ortiz, D 49 14 12 19 17 12 .245 .426 .388 .814  Sizemore, G 37 12 9 13 7 8 .243 .356 .405 .761  Pedroia, D 54 31 12 17 6 6 .222 .295 .333 .628  Ross, D 19 2 4 3 1 4 .211 .250 .263 .513  Bogaerts, X 52 24 9 9 5 14 .173 .271 .231 .502  Napoli, M 47 11 8 17 9 12 .170 .328 .298 .625  Carp, M 20 7 3 5 3 8 .150 .333 .150 .483  Nava, D 13 6 1 1 3 3 .077 .294 .077 .371  Drew, S 2 1 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000  Hassan, A 2 1 0 0 1 2 .000 .333 .000 .333  Lavarnway, R 2 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000  Lester, J 2 0 0 0 0 2 .000 .000 .000 .000  Roberts, R 4 1 0 0 1 2 .000 .200 .000 .200 [/tablegrid]
 

MuzzyField

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This week probably hasn't been the best for JBJ from a comfort factor either.  After taking that ball of of his nose, I would imagine he woke-up the next morning feeling like he was channeling Karl Malden's massive schnoz from the beyond.  
 

Rasputin

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Sampo Gida said:
I think Bradleys biggest problems have been with 2 strikes, just like most hitters . However, he is hitting 134 while league average is 174, so he is doing it worse, and its about 1/2 his AB.
 
There are 2 areas ways he can improve on his 2 strike performance,   Be more aggressive earlier in the count, and rethink his approach with 2 strikes.  If he is in between, it sounds like he may not be picking up pitches very well, so perhaps he can try to guess more.  That can make you look pretty foolish when you guess wrong but you should do better when you guess right.    If you guess right 50% of the time you have a chance to do pretty well, much better than than a 134 BA anyways.
 
If he cant hit a CB even when he knows its coming, that suggests he either has a mechanical problem with his swing, or he shoud not be in the MLB.  As someone said before, that last one is hard to believe since he could not have put up the numbers he did in AA/AAA w/o being able to hit breaking stuff.
 
This is all easier said than done and coming from a guy who now strikes out in slow pitch softball.  
 
Doesn't this rather suggest that the problem isn't that he isn't hitting well in 0-2 counts, but that he gets into 0-2 counts far too often?
 
I don't know how to counter that other than to take some of those first two strikes and turn them into line drives. Pitchers aren't going to stop throwing early strikes to him until he shows he can hit them, and whether that's getting better at reading curves or something else, well, I don't know.
 
I do know, though, that suggesting he's just never going to make it is radically premature.
 

snowmanny

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I haven't given up on JBJ but there is no way he should be playing in the major leagues right now, and that's been obvious for a month. It all looks like bad roster construction since his back-up was a lottery ticket. I'm not even sure there's a good argument that his development wouldn't actually be aided up by sending him down and letting him work on some things with relatively more freedom so I'm left wondering what the FO is thinking.
 

The Mort Report

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At this point I see no reason for not giving Betts a shot, if only to shake up the roster.  He isnt on the 40 man but could he be any worse?  I dont want the RS to give up assets for someone from outside of the organization because they are not one OF from contending(unless of course we are talking about a Stanton or similar player).  When fully healthy, there is no real defensive weakness on the roster.  I'd love to see if Betts could inject some life into the lineup
 

Stitch01

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Trading JBJ is a horrifically stupid idea given the probable return. There's no way it's better to trade him for scraps rather than send him to AAA.
 

soxhop411

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“@JMastrodonato: Jackie Bradley Jr. switching it up tonight, using one of Dustin Pedroia's bats. Lighter (30.5 ounces) and shorter than JBJ's.”


Hopefully this works.
 

dbn

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bosockboy said:
I'd take Corey Patterson.
 
Heck, Corey Haim might be an upgrade at the plate at this point.
 
Seriously, though, I absolutely love watching him play CF. He is turning doubles into outs in the field. It pains me that he isn't hitting, but much less so because I believe that even if he were hitting, this team would not currently be in contention.*
 
* Yes, I know they are only 4 GB of the 2nd wildcard. You know what I mean.
 

bosockboy

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Rudy Pemberton said:
Stay afloat? They've lost 14 of 21, are one of the worst teams in baseball. They are drowning. Sending down JBJ and then calling up Betts works only if Mookie starts out on fire. If he falls flat on his face, what then? At this point, I think the Bradley concern is a lot less about now than it is the future. This team probably isn't going anywhere, but is Jackie going to be an important part of the next Sox contender?
4 back in the WC with several mediocre teams in front of them. It's cliche, but there's 100+ games left for Christ sakes.
 

Bigpupp

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soxhop411 said:
“@JMastrodonato: Jackie Bradley Jr. switching it up tonight, using one of Dustin Pedroia's bats. Lighter (30.5 ounces) and shorter than JBJ's.”


Hopefully this works.
 
Has anyone told Pedroia about this yet?
 

Rasputin

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Yes, JBJ is still the CF of the future. Yes he's an important part of the next great Red Sox team.

It's not even that we're just four back of the wild card, it's that we're five back of the top wild card and less than ten back of the division.

Just getting healthy and back above .500 will put us within striking distance of pretty much everyone we want to catch.
 

ivanvamp

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All of JBJ's struggles are amplified by how the entire team is doing, for crying out loud, they are 37% through the season and they have ONE player who has more than 5 home runs. I mean, that's very hard to believe.
 

DanoooME

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It's too bad they don't have a fast guy on the roster they could hit 8th so he could see more fastballs (despite last night's K in the 8th).  He's clearly flailing against offspeed stuff, and having someone running in front of him would likely get him to see more fastballs during his ABs, which for the most part he seems to be handling OK.
 

The Gray Eagle

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The Holt thread has some suggested comps for Bradley in it, but they should probably go here instead.
 
Here's one: Michael Bourn. His first full year in the majors at age 25, he puts up a putrid 229/288/300 line in 514 plate appearances, for a sweet 57 OPS+. But after that, he gets better. The next season he puts up a 354 OBP in 678 PAs, and his OBP stays over .340 for the next 3 years, before he has an off-year after signing with Cleveland as a free agent. 
 
There is no perfect comp. Bradley is nowhere near the base-stealer Bourn is but he should have occasional power and might be better defensively in CF than Bourn (who has won two Gold Gloves, whatever that is worth.)
 
Another possible comp: Darren Lewis. Excellent with the glove, had some seasons where he got on base decently but overall wasn't a good hitter. A valuable player when he had the OBP over .330, but not when he was under that mark.
 
A happier possible comp: Brett Butler. At age 25, Butler got 268 plate appearances in the majors and slashed a pathetic 217/291/225. His OPS+ was a hard to believe 44. But he got better and ended up playing 17 years, with a career OBP of .377 and a career OPS+ of 110, despite never hitting for much power. Butler was another guy who was much more of a base stealer than Bradley ever will be, but maybe Bradley can improve as a hitter like Butler did.
 
Sometimes when you break in young players, they are might have a terrible season, even if they eventually become good players. It's essential to have an in-house alternative. It would have been nice if they had brought in a RHH CF for Pawtucket before the season, but they went with the Sizemore experiment for CF depth instead.
 

Al Zarilla

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DanoooME said:
It's too bad they don't have a fast guy on the roster they could hit 8th so he could see more fastballs (despite last night's K in the 8th).  He's clearly flailing against offspeed stuff, and having someone running in front of him would likely get him to see more fastballs during his ABs, which for the most part he seems to be handling OK.
BREF says JBJ is doing considerably worse against power pitchers (assume that means high mph, or fastball pitchers) than against finesse pitchers. .342 OPS vs. power, mid .600s vs. average and finesse. Still not a large sample size, and this is 2014 data.