McAdam: Making the case for keeping Jackie Bradley Jr.

In this perfectly upside-down season, Jackie Bradley Jr. may or may not have played his final home game as a member of the Red Sox. For a definitive answer, we may have to wait weeks or months to see whether free agency takes Bradley elsewhere, or returns him to the only organization he's ever known.

If, indeed, it turns out it was Bradley's final game, it took place without any spectacle or drama. In an empty Fenway Park, there was no chance for Bradley to step out of the batter's box and acknowledge the fans' applause, no being lifted for a pinch-runner in the late innings for a chance to tip his cap one last time.

(For the record, Bradley recorded the final defensive out of the night when he drifted back effortlessly to snare a flyball hit by Orioles DH Bryan Holaday in the top of the ninth. For bookending purposes, he then made the final out of the Sox' 13-1 loss to the O's, striking out swinging).

The pandemic has robbed us of this courtesy and tradition, too.

If Bradley is on his way out of town, he's leaving during one of his patented hot streak, having hit safely in 28 of his last 33 games, while posting a .901 OPS in that span. When Sunday's game concludes, it will likely be with both the highest batting average and highest on-base percentage of his career.

His detractors, of whom there are many, would no doubt suggest that Bradley's numbers are inflated by the small sample size and argue that, over time, his hyper-streaky nature would result in numbers that more closely resemble his career average.

Maybe that's true.

And so what?



Bradley's streakiness was established long ago. For all the adjustments and different hitting instructors and approaches, Bradley is, inarguably, prone to massive swings in performance. For weeks at a time, he can appear hapless at the plate, swinging wildly at pitches out of the zone and rolling over to second base with alarming frequency. But eventually, Bradley will also go on a torrid stretch -- similar to how he's been for the past five weeks -- and perform like an All-Star with the bat: utilizing the entire field, peppering The Wall with doubles, and hitting the ball hard.

If you haven't made your peace that, in the end, you're likely to get a .240/.330/.420 season with somewhere between 15-to-20 homers. There's value to that sort of hitter in the bottom third of a lineup.

What makes Bradley worthwhile, of course, is his defense. A Gold Glove winner in 2018 and a finalist for the award in other seasons, the 2020 season will go down as the year in which analytics finally caught up to Bradley's brilliance in center field.

In the past, the defensive metrics hadn't matched what we could see -- that Bradley was a plus-plus defender. Some contended that The Wall in left-center eliminated opportunities for Bradley to prove more range, and that the high walls in center nullified the chance to make acrobatic, homer-robbing catches.

Whatever the explanation, Bradley leads all major league outfielders with six outs above average according to Statcast. Defensive Info Solutions, which pioneered the metric of defensive runs saved, has Bradley with five defensive runs saved -- only a handful of outfielders (regardless of outfield slot) rank higher.

Keep in mind that this has come in Bradley's age-30 season, evidence that he's not slipped a bit in the field as he starts to get into his 30s.

Ultimately, if the Sox retain Bradley, it will require a meeting in the middle on money. Bradley earned $11 million this season in his final year of arbitration and it would seem clear that the Red Sox would not match that in AAV in a long-term deal.

Look at how salaries for position players in their 30s have been trending the last two off-season. Now, factor in -- or attempt to factor in -- the impact of the pandemic and the resulting loss of revenue for teams with no paying customers in a shortened season and no guarantee when there will next be any.

The question may well be: how much of a drop-off will Bradley and others face? And how willing will his agent, Scott Boras, be to acquiesce to that eventuality?

It's possible that a shorter (two-year?) deal may work for both teams. Bradley could perhaps realize a slightly higher AAV if a club wasn't extending itself when it came to length, all the while betting that the free-agent market could rebound in that span.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox could make sure they're not permanently blocking Jarren Duran from becoming Bradley's replacement in center. Surely, Bradley would be a fine mentor for Duran as he learns Fenway's nooks and crannies. And if Bradley has to transition into a platoon player in his second year to make room for Duran, then he would represent terrific depth at a difficult position.

Bradley may well have a big proponent in chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom. Last winter, when he ran the team's organization meetings, Bloom pushed back hard on suggestions from some in the Baseball Operations department who suggested non-tendering him.

And while the Red Sox weren't completely averse to moving Bradley at the trade deadline, they set their asking price so high to at least one team that it quickly shut down any further negotiations. Bradley was the only free-agent-to-be of consequence on the roster who wasn't moved by the team at the deadline.

For his part, Bradley has expressed a willingness to test free agency, an indication that, at the very least, he's interested in seeing what his market his. That's certainly his right.

It would only make sense for the Red Sox to meet that market price and extend Bradley's career here. His history with the franchise dates back nearly a decade, to when he was the Sox' first-round pick in 2011. He's been part of two teams that won a World Series (2013, 2018) and has provided countless highlight catches in center while patrolling the position as few have in team history.

There will be bigger free-agent deals signed elsewhere this offseason and there are more pressing needs -- mostly on the mound -- that the Sox also need to address.

But at a time when defense has never been more valued and appreciated, what sense would it make to not retain a homegrown player who has set the standard at his own position?