Cleveland Indians Offseason Search For Offense: Volume Three

Potential Power Producer #3: Jackie Bradley, Jr.

The hypothetical hunt continues in this, the third volume of an analysis into where the Cleveland Indians could find some offense for 2016 and hopefully beyond. Part two about Jay Bruce can be found here.

Relevant 2015 Stats: 10 HR, .498 SLG, .249 IS0

I know, he doesn’t match up with all the requirements, but home runs are a counting stat, not a rate stat and he wasn’t given the chance to hit 25 homers. He only had 255 plate appearances in 2015, which is underneath another set parameter. But he’s young and talented and hits line drives everywhere.

Positives

Unlike the previous two suggestions, Bradley is nothing resembling a prototypical power hitter. Really, his addition is more to make a general improvement on the team than just add thump to the lineup. He runs, he plays defense, he adds intriguing athleticism to the squad. As said before, versatility is key for a small market team. After scuffling for his first two partial years in the majors, Bradley started to find his legs in 2015 to the tune of a 121 wRC+. His strikeout rate has dropped every year, now down to a still high 27.1%, but once he got consistent playing time in the second half he hammered the ball all over the park and had nearly a 2-1 strikeout to walk ratio. He’d also be a good addition defensively and give Brantley a break some days or even, in the best case, take over center field. What he lacks in power that others in this series will have, he makes up for elsewhere on the field in harder to quantify areas. Anyway, a bunch of doubles works fine. Brantley is a double machine. They’re more entertaining than home runs after a while.

Negatives

He doesn’t bring a ton of home run power to the table, and he’s only really produced at the plate this year. Prior to this past July there were rumbles he couldn’t cut it in the majors, a classic Four-A player. There’s too much of an unknown there, when the Indians already have a guy with speed in the field who hasn’t had a real shot until recently in Abraham Almonte. Projections aren’t too friendly to Bradley either – Steamer suggests a near-100 point drop in his slugging percentage and his wRC+ would drop to 97. Baseball Reference’s Marcel projection drops his OPS to .682. His line drive rate even dropped 3% from a year ago to 15, and his BABIP was 20 points higher than his short career rate to this point. That could go either way because of sample sizes, of course. But he’s not done enough to warrant what Dave Dombrowski might want for him.

Cost

That’s the real issue here. A year ago you could have had him for a song, albeit a pretty good one since he was so young and there was still a bit of the shine of potential to him. Now he looks like he might be something real, the Tribe might have to pay with actual players. The Red Sox want pitching, it was their downfall in 2015 even as they scored runs by the handful. I think a nice deal for him would be for Cody Anderson, basically the pitcher version of Bradley. Anderson had half a hot year and has the same shine of potential to him that Bradley, getting better throughout the year. The deal would make sense I suppose, though personally I’d rather see what Anderson can do with a full season in front of him. Dombrowski said he was planning on moving pieces this winter so surely Bradley could be got, but the Tribe would be risking too much to go much more than Anderson or the like.

Likelihood

Low. It’d be buying high and a bad move for the Tribe. There’s definitely a chance he turns into a very good player down the road, but there’s also a good chance he reverts to the form he showed in 2013, 2014 and the first part of 2015. At any rate, he doesn’t do what they need out of a new addition, though the defense and athleticism would be nice to have. Perhaps it could be swung for something less than an Anderson, if only to have Bradley on the bench. that’s just dreaming though.

Cleveland Indians Offseason Search For Offense: Volume Three – Jackie Bradley, Jr.