What's the sense on Jay Bruce's cost? I just feel like it wouldn't be a back-breaker (which of course I'm throwing out there because I also feel like I could be way off-base on that) and he'd seem like a nice fit--not a marginal hope-for-it upgrade, but someone that could come in and provide some power and good ABs platooning with Young. He's got a $13m option for next year, so nothing long-term.
Would be nice to push Holt back to the bench where he can really help a ton. It isn't really just LF that needs a patch, but the resulting boon for the bench is desperately needed.
The more I look at him, the better Bruce looks. I know he was originally broached as a platoon partner for Young, but he doesn't have a ginormous platoon split; his career OPS vs. LHP is .725, and this year he has almost no split at all. There's no particular reason why we'd have to hide him from lefties, except in the sense of targeting tough lefty starters as good days to rest him. And it's not like Young won't be back.
His contract, which guarantees him for the rest of this year, with a 2017 option, is perfect. If he does well, we exercise the option; if not, we go looking somewhere else over the winter. Either way, the contract makes him an ideal Bridge to Benintendi(R).
I see two caveats, neither deal-breaking:
1) Since his 2014 knee injury, his outfield range has sucked. But this matters less in Fenway's LF than in most (and next year, as Benintendi emerges, there may be opportunities to alternate Bruce with Hanley in the DH slot).
2) He has a recent history of cratering offensively in the second half. This seems like a more serious issue if it's conditioning-related. But the 2014 dip was obviously related to the injury, and the 2015 one, which seems mostly BABIP-driven, may have been a fluke.
As for the cost, last year's Cespedes trade might be a decent comp. Cespedes probably had more on-field value, but was only signed through the remainder of the year, so Bruce's option would at least even things out. The Tigers got one very good pitching prospect--he was a BA top-50 coming into this year, but not before that--and another pitching prospect who was more of a tier-2 throw-in. Fulmer was a better prospect than Kopech (at least that's how I read the tea leaves), so we'd have to improve on the throw-in and maybe add a third leg as well. Maybe something like Kopech/Dubon/Stankiewicz might do it?
