UNCERTAINTY FOR JBJ ENTERING WALK YEAR
How much will shortened season affect potential payday?
It’s not an ideal time to be entering a free agent year. Red Sox center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. was already in a tough position given his unusual status as a four-time arbitration-eligible player. He’ll be entering his age 31 season as he hits the market this winter, presenting a difficult task for talent evaluators, especially given they may only see an abbreviated season (and one that comes after a long layoff due to the coronavirus pandemic).
With Bradley, one of the more enigmatic stars in baseball, there were always going to be a wide range of possible outcomes as he approached free agency.
Will he play himself out of the Red Sox’ price range if they’re looking to stay on a more frugal path going forward? In the farm system, the presence of center fielder Jarren Duran, a former second baseman who is still learning the outfield, could make things interesting.
JBJ, a Scott Boras client, could fetch anywhere from $8 million to $16 million per year in a normal market, depending on his 2020 production.
Making things more complicated is a loaded free agent class for center fielders.
Astros star George Springer is just five months older than Bradley and is a strong defender who hits as well as anyone in the game. Springer averaged .292 while setting a career-high with 39 homers last year. He was due $21 million via arbitration this year and should challenge Mookie Betts as the most desirable free agent come winter.
There’s a handful of other center fielders hitting the market, too. Defensive specialist Jake Marisnick, 30, is
much less of a hitter than Bradley, while Dodgers utility man Enrique Hernandez, 29, is a better hitter and more versatile defender. Michael Taylor, Cameron Maybin and Jarrod Dyson could be desirable for teams shopping in the bargain bin.
And there’s another interesting angle to Bradley’s free agent candidacy: teammate Kevin Pillar is one year older and also hitting free agency again in the winter.
Pillar was once Bradley’s peer among the elite center fielders in the American League, but his defensive numbers were poor in 2019. Despite hitting a career-high .287 with 21 homers playing mostly for the Giants last year, Pillar signed with the Sox early in spring training for a one-year deal worth just $4.25 million.
Bradley has been a more productive hitter and a better established defender than Pillar, and it was Bradley who was earning most of the starts in center field during spring training while Pillar was penciled for right field.
With budding young star Alex Verdugo healthy again and expected to play right field, it’s uncertain how much playing time Pillar will receive as a fourth outfielder if play starts again soon.
Bradley graded low in defensive metrics last year, ranking near the bottom of all MLB center fielders in SABR’s defensive index, which is used for 25% of the Gold Glove calculations. He won his first and surprisingly only Gold Glove in 2018.
As the game skews younger, how many more years will Bradley remain a productive defender in center field?
Most great center fielders start to decline in their early 30s. It was just recently that Adam Jones won his fourth Gold Glove at age 28, but was a below-average defender by 30 and left MLB to play in Japan this year at 34.
Some other former star defenders include Andruw Jones, who won his 10th Gold Glove at 30, but was injured at 31 and never played a full season again, Torii Hunter, who won his final Gold Glove at 33 and continued to play center for a few more seasons, and Mike Cameron, who also won his final Gold Glove at 33 and played center through age 36.
Offensively, Bradley is beyond streaky, but has pop and hits left-handed, which surely makes him a more attractive player. He hit .225 with 21 homers last year, when MLB saw its highest home run totals of all-time. Over the last five years he’s averaged .244 with a .765 OPS and 17 homers.
A search for similar numbers through age 29 on Baseball Reference shows Bradley is comparable to Josh Reddick and Aaron Hicks, who have contracts Boston’s center fielder would likely be happy with in a more stable market.
Reddick plays right field and was a year younger when he hit free agency and signed for four years, $52 million with the Astros.
Hicks plays a solid center field and, after a career year with the Yankees in 2018, signed an extension worth $70 million over seven years.
Bradley was supposed to make $11 million this season, his final year in arbitration. A career-average season and normal market would suggest he’d get a contract somewhere in between Reddick and Hicks.
Now, anything is possible. But there’s a lot riding on his performance in 2020.