Jackie Bradley, Jr. Or... Uh... Umm...

Boston should probably re-sign JBJ

Yesterday morning I woke up, made my coffee, and pulled up MLB Trade Rumors to be sure I hadn’t missed anything important. I was greeted with this:

This, friends, is not good news. If you’re one of those weirdos who likes good players, enjoys rooting for good people, and thinks winning is good, that is. Otherwise, it’s fine.

I am one of those weirdos though, so my immediate reaction was “uh-oh” but then I did some thinking. Headlines like that don’t necessarily mean anything. Sometimes it’s a team trying to soften up the market, or an agent trying to make a client seem more in demand. Sometimes reporters just make stuff up.*

*I will never, ever, ever understand this.

Either way though, thinking through this led me to a kind of mini-epiphany. Beyond Bradley, here is a total paucity of options in center field. That includes the free agent market both now and next off-season, and the market for likely trade candidates. If the Red Sox are actively trying to win in 2021 - and they say they are - then, well, there really aren’t a whole lot of other options at the position. I don’t even mean better options, I just mean options.

Here is the list of free agent center fielders according to MLB Trade Rumors:

Other than Springer and Bradley is there one guy on that list you’d feel comfortable writing into the starting lineup on the regular? Springer is a bit of a special case in that he’s actually really good, but he’s not especially likely to stick in center field long term. His bat will support moving to an outfield corner, but the Red Sox don’t particularly need to tie up long-term payroll in corner outfielders right now. I’m not saying don’t sign George Springer. He’s really good (think I said that already, but what the heck: he’s really good!). I just don’t see the Red Sox doing that, or really even trying to do that.

Beyond Springer (and Bradley), if you are the parent of any of the players on that list, please look away now.

YUCK!

Kevin Pillar is a decent fourth outfielder candidate. Albert Almora’s bat is so bad you couldn’t pencil him in because he took your pencil up to the plate to hit with. Haruki Nishikawa is a name I don’t know much about, but it appears he’s more of a utility infielder than an everyday center fielder. And that’s it! That’s the whole free agent market!

The trade market isn’t a lot better. Starling Marte is entering the last year of his contract and he’s a good hitter, so a pretty good fit, but that all begs the question, why would the Diamondbacks trade him? After Marte… Ender Inciarte? Ian Desmond? Woof! The other problem with trades is that you have to give up talent to get talent, and the Red Sox don’t have a whole heck of a lot of that to trade away right now.

It all comes down to the fact that the simplest and likely best way to handle this is to bring Bradley back on a two or three year deal. If the team has designs on Springer, okay, that’s an upgrade in total package, but I think we know this team isn’t going there. Otherwise, what else is there? It’s kinda Bradley or bust. He’s not a bad option though. He’s a good guy, charitable and cares about the fans, we know he can play in Boston, he’ll help the pitching staff, he’s not going to cost a ton or require a five or six year deal, and he’ll buy you a few years time for Jarren Duran to develop or to find another option.

Maybe there’s something else I’m not seeing here, but the more I think about it, the more it seems obvious to me. Sign JBJ. Before someone else does.