Red Sox’ priorities must include properly evaluating Jackie Bradley Jr., Rusney Castillo
Playing nine innings while noticing that Blake Swihart’s slugging percentage in the majors is that same as Allen Craig’s at Pawtucket (.333) …
1. The priority for the remaining 50 games of the 2015 season should be obvious. Everything now should be geared toward getting ready for the 162 games of the 2016 season.
Atop that to-do list for Ben Cherington and John Farrell – beyond figuring out a way to keep Eduardo Rodriguez from tipping his pitches, I suppose — is to find out what they have in Rusney Castillo and Jackie Bradley Jr. There’s genuine hope for both.
At 28, Castillo has to make it sooner rather than later, but he seems to have made adjustments and has an .819 OPS in 49 plate appearances since returning from Pawtucket a couple of weeks ago.
Perhaps we underestimated how long it would take for him to shake off the rust from the Cuban defector’s year-and-a-half away from organized baseball. Don’t be one of those annoying people who throws him into the bust pile already – the talent is obvious, and he’s showing signs of living up to it.
2. As for Bradley, he’s had a significant chance to succeed in the majors already, and he did not. There haven’t been many encouraging indications that he can hit pitching at the highest level. In 605 plate appearances in the bigs, he has a .191/.270/.280 slash line.
But – you knew there was a but – his defense truly is spectacular, and if he can hit just .240 or so, there’s a place for him in a major league lineup. Sure, that place is ninth in the order. I believe he’s up to proving he belongs, and not just because he homered, tripled, and drove in five runs Sunday.
Bradley has always hit in the minors – except last year, when he slashed .212/.246/.273 in Pawtucket after the Red Sox sent him down. This year, he raked with the PawSox (.305/.382/.472), an indication that the problems that ailed him last year in the minors have been cured. He earned another shot, the one he is getting right now. I hope he seizes it.
3. From Nick Cafardo’s Sunday Baseball Notes column in the Globe, in a section suggesting that the Red Sox could remedy some of their ills by trying to trade for one of the Mets’ promising young starting pitchers:
One suggestion offered: Would the Red Sox be able to obtain Matt Harvey for Xander Bogaerts?
One answer offered (by me): Why the hell would they try to do that?
Harvey is a outstanding pitcher, albeit one who has been more prone to the home-run ball post-Tommy John surgery (he’s allowed 16 HRs in 140 innings this year after allowing 12 in 237.2 career innings previously).
He’s also 3 ½ years older than the blossoming Bogaerts, and – this is important – he’s a pitcher.
It would be a cardinal sin given the relative paucity of offense in baseball these days to trade a 22-year-old shortstop who is already arguably your best player, has worked hard to improve, and still has room for further improvement for a starting pitcher, even an excellent one.
4. Related to that, I continue to believe that the Red Sox had the right philosophy in mind this offseason when they signed an elite (when healthy and motivated) hitter in Hanley Ramirez while targeting mid-20s pitchers whose track records suggested they were ascending.
I’m not suggesting they don’t need an ace – they do. But the belief that quality starting pitching nowadays is relatively easy to come by was a reasonable one. The problem is that they completely botched a logical process by utterly misidentifying the pitchers to pursue.
The theory wasn’t the issue. The evaluation was.
5. Junichi Tazawa does his job and he does it well, which makes him an outlier on this misshapen roster and especially among this relief corps, which has been so ineffective that it’s a surprise that the bullpen cop hasn’t started wearing a flame-retardant suit in their presence.
Tazawa was essential the last time the Red Sox were any good, and at age 29 he’ll likely still be essential when they’re good again. Given that he hasn’t looked right lately – hitters have a 1.024 OPS against him in his last 10 appearances – the Red Sox ought to do the prudent thing and shut him down for the season. He’s already had one Tommy John surgery. John Farrell sometimes utilizes Tazawa like the manager is on retainer for Dr. James Andrews.
6. In 213 plate appearances after the All-Star break last year, Brock Holt slashed .219/.278/.271. In 75 plate appearances since his All-Star Game appearance this year, he’s at .222/.230/.250.
I’m not suggesting that another second half fade is irrefutable confirmation that he wears down and becomes ineffective with semi-regular play. I’m suggesting that we should keep all of this in mind should he get off to a fast start again next season. He’s very good utility player. Asking him to be more than that might be asking too much.
7. I know he’s taken the responsibility for the signing – offering a target for the slings and arrows comes with a general manager’s territory — but I’ll never believe that Pablo Sandoval was Ben Cherington’s idea.
His OPS declined three straight seasons from a remarkable .909 in 2011 – there’s no way the Red Sox’ sabermetrically inclined brain-trust became smitten with a poorly conditioned player trending in the wrong direction.
I believe he signed off on it for two reasons:
1) Even an average player would be an upgrade over the Will Middlebrooks sinkhole, and Sandoval was above-average last year (113 adjusted OPS)
2) Tom Werner and the NESN folks had to love the idea of bringing in Sandoval – aka the Panda – even more than they loved signing superstar Carl Crawford in 2011.
I mean, there was a guy in a Panda suit at the introductory press conference. You think that was Cherington’s idea? Does he seem the Panda-suit type?
It sure looks to me like the Red Sox overpaid for a decent player showing signs of decline out of need — for their infield and their television network.
8. I’ll miss Larry Lucchino. The Red Sox will too. Sure, you’re familiar with his mistakes – lowballing Jon Lester, hiring Bobby Valentine, driving Theo Epstein away the first time, wearing that goofy cowboy hat that one time.
But the Red Sox also won three World Series titles during the first 10 years on his watch after winning zero on anyone’s watch in the 84 seasons before the current ownership bought the team.
He was the checks-and-balances guy, the blunt voice who questioned everything, and it certainly doesn’t appear that the Red Sox have that person in their front office right now.
9. The Rangers trail the Angels by four games in the American League West and by the same margin for the second wild card. The Rangers and Angels end the season with a four-game set in Arlington.
Given how Mike Napoli enjoys exacting payback on Mike Scioscia, the manager who doubted him, almost as much as he enjoyed roaming our neighborhoods shirtless, it seems the Red Sox did him a solid.
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