The Red Sox ripped the band-aid off Thursday morning, releasing outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. and ending his second stay with the club.
According to industry sources, the Red Sox had sought to deal Bradley earlier this week, before the MLB trade deadline, and were prepared to take back a significant part of his remaining salary in order to facilitate a trade. But even then, interest was slight.
As a player with more than five years of service time, Bradley was in position to refuse a minor league assignment, and frankly, that arrangement wasn't in either his or the team's interest. So Bradley was released Thursday, giving him the opportunity to sign with the team of his choice. That team will owe him just the pro-rated portion of the minimum salary for the remainder of this season, with the Red Sox on the hook for the rest.
A few thoughts:
* When the Red Sox traded for Bradley, hours before the lockout, the general assumption was that Bradley was being acquired to serve as a complementary player on the roster -- a platoon option in either center or right after some righthanded pitching, available as a defensive replacement in the late innings.
But when the Sox didn't land another outfielder -- even a platoon partner in right field -- he became a de facto regular.
The Sox were confident that coming back to Boston, coupled with some off-season eye surgery, would result in far better offensive results than a year ago with Milwaukee. By and large, that didn't happen. Bradley slashed .210/.257/.321 with just three homers and 29 RBI.
Bradley was actually somewhat productive at home -- .288/.317/.468, with all three of his homers coming at Fenway. But even that performance couldn't cover up for his atrocious numbers on the road -- .129/.196/.167. Perhaps no metric better captures the disparity between his hitting home and away than OPS+: at home, he was a more-than-acceptable 117; on the road, he was a woeful 7.
Had Bradley been the only underperformer in the Red Sox' lineup, they might have been able to live with his offense. But with poor results from others in center field and first base, too, Bradley became part of a black hole in the bottom third of the lineup.
In the big picture, though, the Sox did him a great disservice by not offering him some protection by providing a righthanded hitting partner to handle right field.
* The trade that returned Bradley to Boston last December now goes down as a lopsided loss for Chaim Bloom, and is likely to stay that way for chief baseball officer -- unless and until the two prospects that came with Bradley develop into big league regulars in the future.
Bloom's thinking at the time was this: Hunter Renfroe was getting more expensive and was unlikely to duplicate the season he had in Boston in 2021. By moving him to Milwaukee, the Sox could get an elite defender (Bradley) who almost by definition had to be better offensively than a year ago, plus they would get two intriguing prospects to further re-stock their minor league system.
Alex Binelas was seen as a power threat while David Hamilton represented a plus-plus speed option. But after strong starts this year at Single A, both have seen their development sputter at Double A Portland.
Thus, the deal is a double-loss for Bloom -- he failed to improve the major league roster, and unless both Binelas and Hamilton turn things around, he won't have anything in the way of prospects to show as an alternative.
* As poor as his hitting was, Bradley remained an elite defender.
That was illustrated by his seven defensive runs saved in right field. Bradley shifted to right from his more familiar center and handled the challenges that come with playing right in Fenway flawlessly. (His numbers in center, oddly, were less flattering with -2 runs saved in center. That is at least partly explained by the fact that most players believe playing center at Fenway is a thankless task when it comes to modern defensive metrics, with no room to scale walls and take away extra-base hits or homers).
Still, Bradley will be remembered as among the best pure defenders to have roamed the Fenway lawn, on a short list in center with Dom DiMaggio, Fred Lynn and, frankly, few others. And he flashed a powerful and accurate arm to go with his range and penchant for acrobatic catches.
And while we're on the subject of legacy, it will be impossible for Red Sox fans to forget his play in October 2018, when the Sox won their fourth championship this century.
After a quiet Division Series (2-for-15) against the Yankees, Bradley was named the MVP of the ALCS triumph over the Houston Astros, In a three-game span he knocked in nine runs including a grand slam in Game 3 at Minute Maid Park that put the Sox back in control of the series after they split the first two games in Boston.
Finally, there was a big homer off Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen in the epic Game 3 of the World Series in Dodger Stadium.
* It's somewhat odd that the Sox would choose now to cut bait with Bradley.
Either by keeping him, or releasing him, they're on the hook for his remaining salary -- approximately $3.6 million. So why not keep him as a platoon option and as a defensive replacement?
Instead, for now, the team's fourth outfielder is Jaylen Davis, who is a marginal upgrade offensively, but not in Bradley's class as an outfielder.
The team expects both Rob Refsnyder and Kiké Hernandez to return from IL stints eventually, so maybe letting Bradley go was going to be a fait accompli eventually.