Jackie Bradley, Jr. - Help

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

The BABIP argument is a good one that I hadn't fully explored. You're right that .404 isn't sustainable, of course. But I think simply putting MORE balls in play is sustainable. 
 
The BA on a strikeout is always going to be zero. 
 
His K% by month:
 
April - 27.7 percent 
May - 30.8 percent (.490 OPS, truly horrid month of hitting)
June - 26.4 percent
July - 24.6 percent (.710 OPS, not too shabby)
 
Maybe that's a trend, maybe it's just a little bit of luck in small samples, but if he can get down around 20 percent, that should keep him well in the acceptable range. 

 

[Bergs]

Maybe that's a trend, maybe it's just a little bit of luck in small samples, but if he can get down around 20 percent, that should keep him well in the acceptable range. 

 
So if he reduces how much he sucks at hitting, he'll be a better hitter. I can dig it.

 

[Plympton91]

Those are, as you note, arbitrary goalposts, and the problem is it's entirely BABIP-driven. He's BABIPing .404 in that span. His K/BB is still more 3/1 (19/6), and he's still hitting for no power (5 XBH, all 2B). He looks better (and as others have noted, the LD% is up), but the peripheral numbers suggest the improvement is unsustainable.

 
And another arbitrary cutoff doesn't include just the 3 game 0'fer, but the 4 games before that.  Over his last 7, he's 3-23 with a walk.

 

[Eck'sSneakyCheese]

 
And another arbitrary cutoff doesn't include just the 3 game 0'fer, but the 4 games before that.  Over his last 7, he's 3-23 with a walk.

 
Over Ellsbury's last 7 he's 1 for 25 with three BB's. 
 
The Sox definitely got the better player!!!! 

 

[Reverend]

Somebody mentioned before that it seems like JBJ isn't making any progress. I don't think that's quite accurate. I mean, the numbers have been generally disappointing, but there have been changes, and adjustments, and counter adjustments made by pitchers, and so on. That's a progression.
 
Will it eventually get him somewhere we want him to be remains to be seen. But it's a process and he appears engaged in it, so I think the upside makes it a worthwhile process.

 

[EricFeczko]

Somebody mentioned before that it seems like JBJ isn't making any progress. I don't think that's quite accurate. I mean, the numbers have been generally disappointing, but there have been changes, and adjustments, and counter adjustments made by pitchers, and so on. That's a progression.
 
Will it eventually get him somewhere we want him to be remains to be seen. But it's a process and he appears engaged in it, so I think the upside makes it a worthwhile process.

In fact the progression by eye appears to match the progression in the results. He has a .404 BABIP, in part, because he is hitting the ball hard, not because he's getting lucky hits. Now the data are not stable in a single month, but that means we don't know what direction the future trend may take; the lack of power is as . He will certainly show a reduced BABIP, but may show increased ISO because he is hitting the ball harder now.

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

But Defense gets further broken down into "PItching" and "Fielding" --- Given that on average about 7 outs per game are strikeouts, that suggests a higher weight on Pitching than Fielding.  So, let's call the breakdown of defense into 33 percent pitching and 20 percent fielding.  Another reason to downweight fielding relative to pitching is because fielding can be broken into "routine" and "not routine," so who is doing the fielding only matters on a subset of batted balls.

 
Trade deadline punch drunkenness aside (sorry), I don't follow how you go from having the pitcher be directly responsible for 7/27 outs to saying pitching is 1.5 times as important as defense?

 

[Plympton91]

Trade deadline punch drunkenness aside (sorry), I don't follow how you go from having the pitcher be directly responsible for 7/27 outs to saying pitching is 1.5 times as important as defense?

Because even if a 50 year old Jose Canseco was playing CF, the vast majority of high flyballs would be turned into outs, the vast majority of line drives that should be singles would stay singles, and ground rule doubles would be ground rule doubles.

Granted, this is what the "advanced defensive metrics" are designed to measure, I just fail to see how those metrics are different from plus minus ratings in hockey or basketball. Bradley will have a better UZR if he's flanked by Jose Canseco and Kevin Mitchell than if he's flanked by Dwight Evans and Carl Crawford. In the former case, he'll catch everything between LCF and RCF, and in the latter those better fielders will cause balls in the gaps to be split more evenly among the three outfielders. It is an entirely context dependent stat.

 

[Pumpsie]

Now 0-20 with 10 K's. Up to 99 K's, with the lowest SLG for a full time OF in 5+ years. Obviously, needs to make another adjustment.

The last two months seem incredibly important to JBJ, perhaps more to anyone else on the team.

Agreed.  It's worrisome to see how little he's mastered the strike zone so far.  His minor league stats seemed to indicate that he had some mastery already but we really haven't seen much evidence of it yet. When one looks at, say, the career of a Coco Crisp, one has to say that JBJ is lagging behind where Coco was just starting out.  His defense is better, of course, but Crisp was a much better hitter at 24.  If JBJ could eventually become the equal of Crisp offensively, he would be a valuable player.  But, we haven't seen any indications that that will happen...yet. 

 

[Plympton91]

The complete loss of power is just as disconcerting. This is a guy who many had suggested would be in the mid teens for HRs and he's got 1. Even players struggling to make contact usually run into one occasionally. Really disappointing.

And yet, he turned another double play from the outfield today. He's making the strongest case he possibly can that he's an Ozzie Smith level outlier defender. Maybe we need to get Farrell a portfolio of lineups used by Earl Weaver to get Mark Belanger in the max amount of defensive innings while minimizing his plate appearances. I remember on game where Weaver had a bench guy hit 2nd, the in the bottom of the first he subbed in Belanger at SS, then pinch hit for him again late in the game. So Belanger played 8 innings in the field but only got 2 at bats.

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

I haven't looked extensively at the heat maps, but my intuition from watching the games is that he's both baffled by where the outside corner is and how to defend it.

Maybe that's a result of him opening his stance so much?

 

[Stitch01]

The complete loss of power is just as disconcerting. This is a guy who many had suggested would be in the mid teens for HRs and he's got 1. Even players struggling to make contact usually run into one occasionally. Really disappointing.

And yet, he turned another double play from the outfield today. He's making the strongest case he possibly can that he's an Ozzie Smith level outlier defender. Maybe we need to get Farrell a portfolio of lineups used by Earl Weaver to get Mark Belanger in the max amount of defensive innings while minimizing his plate appearances. I remember on game where Weaver had a bench guy hit 2nd, the in the bottom of the first he subbed in Belanger at SS, then pinch hit for him again late in the game. So Belanger played 8 innings in the field but only got 2 at bats.

4 man bench kills a lot of this creativity unfortunately

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

4 man bench kills a lot of this creativity unfortunately

IIRC, those O's teams usually had an 8 or 9 man pitching staff (as did a lot of teams) .. Weaver routinely platooned in LF and C and still had a bunch of guys left for those sort of lineup shenanigans.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

And yet, he turned another double play from the outfield today. He's making the strongest case he possibly can that he's an Ozzie Smith level outlier defender. Maybe we need to get Farrell a portfolio of lineups used by Earl Weaver to get Mark Belanger in the max amount of defensive innings while minimizing his plate appearances. I remember on game where Weaver had a bench guy hit 2nd, the in the bottom of the first he subbed in Belanger at SS, then pinch hit for him again late in the game. So Belanger played 8 innings in the field but only got 2 at bats.

 
We were about to have this conversation with Iggy; it's disconcerting to see it back with JBJ.
 

I haven't looked extensively at the heat maps, but my intuition from watching the games is that he's both baffled by where the outside corner is and how to defend it.

Maybe that's a result of him opening his stance so much?

 
Just from what I'm reading, it seems that there is a hole in his original swing that pitchers can exploit, but when he changed to address that hole, it created another one, and now that he's switched back, I suspect pitchers have gone back to the original way of working him. I hope he does some work with a hitting coach and video this offseason.
 

4 man bench kills a lot of this creativity unfortunately

 
Maybe you can't bat one of the starting pitchers who isn't scheduled to make a turn in his spot into the 2-hole? That would be creative. :astonished:

 

[Eddie Jurak]

Alex Speier has a good column on Bradley today.
 
He notes that since 2000, there have been 12 players with comparable levels of offensive ineptitude through their age 24 seasons (OPS+ < 80, strikeouts in over 25% of PAs).
 
John Buck
Felipe Lopez
Anthony Gose
Laynce Nix
Wladimir Balentien
Jason Repko
Jonathan Villar 
Bill Hall
Aaron Hicks
Jimmy Paredes
Michael Saunders
Chad Hermansen
 
Three (Gose, Villar, Hicks), like Bradley, have not yet had their age 25 seasons, so the jury is still out.  Most of the others either washed out of the league or didn't improve (Repko, Nix, Hermansen, Paredes, Balentien). If he falls in withbthem then he's a 4th/5th outfielder on a good team.
 
Four (Buck, Saunders, Hall, Lopez) turned it around, at least somewhat. Lopez had an All-Star season at 25 (OPS+ 118) and was usually a decent OBP guy through age 29 (OPS+ 93, 75, 94, 112, 128).  Hall had good years at ages 25-27 (OPS+ 117, 125, 89), then was bad in ages 28-29 before a one year resurgence as a role player with Boston at age 30.  Saunders has been above average at ages 25-27 (OPS+ of 108, 105, and 116 (in progress)). Buck's OPS+ from 25-32 (80, 92, 79, 104, 114, 87, 73, 84).
 
If Bradley can get to the Saunders/Hall/Lopez level, then he's a plus all around player and a perennial Gold Glove winner.  If he can get to Buck's level, he is at least enough of a hitter to justify his spot in the lineup in most years.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[Rasputin]

Now 0-20 with 10 K's. Up to 99 K's, with the lowest SLG for a full time OF in 5+ years. Obviously, needs to make another adjustment.

The last two months seem incredibly important to JBJ, perhaps more to anyone else on the team.

 
I think the only one for whom the last two months are clearly more important is Middlebrooks, but they're pretty important to Bogaerts too. And, well, the entire rotation.

 

[LondonSox]

The pressure on JBJ is Betts imo.
He seems like he can play CF and the doubts on him hitting are crazy. Sure he needs to prove it but unless he's been lucky for a year and a half, and somewhat lucky before that as even then he had good bb to K ratios etc.

I am pretty shocked JBJ has been this bad. He's a guy that an adjustment period was not unlikely, but he's succeeded everywhere his whole career and the defensive was never in doubt, allowing him some time.

Depending what happens with trades etc, it could be a straight competition Betts vs JBJ next year.
Betts is obviously blocked at his best position (2b) and right now the of corners have 3 players for two spots.

I want JBJ to come good as I think defensively he's just great and his history suggests the bat should be ok. But I don't know how you leave Betts out of the team.

 

[Harry Hooper]

It's ugly. JBJ just looks incapable of hitting a pitch hard right now.

 

[LuckyBen]

It's ugly. JBJ just looks incapable of hitting a pitch hard right now.

It's really bad right now

 

[Pumpsie]

It's really bad right now

Yeah, Kruk is right.  The only thing that could be worse than JBJ's approach to hitting right now would be if he were wearing a blindfold.  That's an awful set-up.  Surprising that the Sox are allowing him to do that.  Speaking of that, shouldn't the Sox be looking for a new hitting coach next year? 

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

It's ugly. JBJ just looks incapable of hitting a pitch hard right now.

Well, if big league baseball pitches know that you can't hit a particular pitch, or a particular sequence of pitches, it's going to be ugly.

Also, both he and Xander don't seem like they have any idea whether a pitch is going to end up in or outside of the strike zone.

 

[HomeRunBaker]

 
I think the only one for whom the last two months are clearly more important is Middlebrooks, but they're pretty important to Bogaerts too. And, well, the entire rotation.

I was going to post similar. It isn't only Bradley....and Middlebrooks....and our young starters but also Vazquez, Buchholz and Cespedes as well.

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

Yeah, Kruk is right.  The only thing that could be worse than JBJ's approach to hitting right now would be if he were wearing a blindfold.  That's an awful set-up.  Surprising that the Sox are allowing him to do that.  Speaking of that, shouldn't the Sox be looking for a new hitting coach next year? 

Kruk can see it. We can see it. There's no way they're not seeing it in the clubhouse, too, right?

He looks horrible with that weird toe turn. It's like he's not giving himself a chance.

 

[SouthernBoSox]

I am going to need to go back and look at video, but I'm 98% sure when he was going well back in July that he was using a leg kick.

 

[nattysez]

Would it be the worst thing to send JBJ down for a month and let Holt and Betts handle cf? The return to AAA seemed to do Betts some good. JBJ is an artist in cf, so they need to find a way to straighten out his hitting. Having him learn in the majors isn't working.

 

[Harry Hooper]

Would it be the worst thing to send JBJ down for a month and let Holt and Betts handle cf? The return to AAA seemed to do Betts some good. JBJ is an artist in cf, so they need to find a way to straighten out his hitting. Having him learn in the majors isn't working.

 
Mickey Mantle got sent down for a retooling. It's not the end of the world.

 

[P'tucket rhymes with...]

The pressure on JBJ is Betts imo.
He seems like he can play CF and the doubts on him hitting are crazy. Sure he needs to prove it but unless he's been lucky for a year and a half, and somewhat lucky before that as even then he had good bb to K ratios etc.

I am pretty shocked JBJ has been this bad. He's a guy that an adjustment period was not unlikely, but he's succeeded everywhere his whole career and the defensive was never in doubt, allowing him some time.

Depending what happens with trades etc, it could be a straight competition Betts vs JBJ next year.
Betts is obviously blocked at his best position (2b) and right now the of corners have 3 players for two spots.

I want JBJ to come good as I think defensively he's just great and his history suggests the bat should be ok. But I don't know how you leave Betts out of the team.

How are you so sure Betts works out when you point out that JBJ's pedigree was just as strong before getting here?

 

[Al Zarilla]

 
Mickey Mantle got sent down for a retooling. It's not the end of the world.

I've used that one too, but Mantle went D League at 17 years old, C League at 18 and NYY at 19. He probably was never anywhere outside of Kansas - Oklahoma - Missouri until he got to NY. That might be too much too fast for anybody, even an all time great. Well, it obviously was. He came back raking and never looked back. Bradley's had about two full seasons worth of minor league experience over three years. In a perfect world, if Ellsbury's here in 2014, would he have repeated AAA? What's Walt Hriniak doing? Frank Thomas praised him like he would have been a scrub hitter without his tutelage. To send him back to Pawtucket, or not? 

 

[SouthernBoSox]

I've watched his swing about a billion times this morning and I can't wrap my mind around the toe tap and load.  It's basically impossible to time up hitting a baseball that way.  He just can't get his front foot down. 
 
He needs to dump the tap and go with a small leg kick and just get the front foot down.  Get it down.  No wonder he is so late...

 

[Puffy]

I think the Sox coaching staff has to take the brunt of the blame for JBJ and X, both of whom came to the big leagues praised for their hitting approach, good batting eye, and great makeup. I understand that there needs to be some patience with their development, but watching them get completely blown away is so depressing. Xander will chase a fastball up, then watch a meatball right down the dick, before flailing at a slider in the dirt. JBJ's loading and toe tapping is so complex, that he can't even catch up to breaking balls. They are both lost up there and I hope that it's not doing permanent damage to their development. 

 

[Al Zarilla]

I think the Sox coaching staff has to take the brunt of the blame for JBJ and X, both of whom came to the big leagues praised for their hitting approach, good batting eye, and great makeup. I understand that there needs to be some patience with their development, but watching them get completely blown away is so depressing. Xander will chase a fastball up, then watch a meatball right down the dick, before flailing at a slider in the dirt. JBJ's loading and toe tapping is so complex, that he can't even catch up to breaking balls. They are both lost up there and I hope that it's not doing permanent damage to their development. 

Is that an autocorrect? Never seen that one. 

 

[teddykgb]

It was a pretty common expression when I played, obviously a pretty boorish euphemism for a grooved fastball.  
 
I think the analysis is way too simplistic, though.  The minor league stratification is probably not necessary, per se, but it does serve to properly season and mature these guys with gradual increases in difficulty.  JBJ and Xander (and Mookie) just didn't spend enough time in the minors to deal with some of these things and have some of their flaws exposed.  Now they're trying to do this on the big stage and it gets into a guy's head.  It's hard to quantify, but failure, especially first failure, can really mess with a guy.  Demotion comes with its own baggage, but both of them could probably use a little more success right now to get their heads right.  
 
Since this thread is about JBJ, I think it's clear that he needs to work on his load mechanics and how he's timing pitches.  I think the open/closed stuff is a sort of panacea similar to "tipping pitches"....these are things baseball players try and/or are prone to using as excuses for small sample size data sets.  He's got to get comfortable in the box and he's got to find a way to trust his read on pitches so he can take good, aggressive swings at the pitches he identifies as hittable.  When you start questioning your own judgment, you start letting good pitches go by and can really do a number on yourself when you swing at yet another pitch you know you shouldn't have swung at. 

 

[Moosey]

If I were his manager my message from a psychology standpoint would be something like:  "Your season stats start today.  See what you can in the next 50 games, that's your measure."
 
Light a fire, but a competitive one, not a "you need to hit .400 so your season stats get to something not terrible"

 

[nattysez]

If I were his manager my message from a psychology standpoint would be something like:  "Your season stats start today.  See what you can in the next 50 games, that's your measure."
 
Light a fire, but a competitive one, not a "you need to hit .400 so your season stats get to something not terrible"

 
I hate this idea.  Do we really think JBJ isn't trying hard enough such that his "fire" needs to be re-lit?  Allowing him to re-set at AAA, then come up and (one hopes) have a positive September seems like the better approach. 

 

[Moosey]

I think he's trying way too hard.  It's a bastardized Coach K approach, where he parcels out the game into 4 minute increments and puts the focus on winning the next 4 minutes.  "Win" the next 10 games.  And then the 10 after that.  I want him focused on the right things, that is what I meant by fire, not that he doesn't care or isn't trying.

 

[Yelling At Clouds]

I think the Sox coaching staff has to take the brunt of the blame for JBJ and X, both of whom came to the big leagues praised for their hitting approach, good batting eye, and great makeup. I understand that there needs to be some patience with their development, but watching them get completely blown away is so depressing. Xander will chase a fastball up, then watch a meatball right down the dick, before flailing at a slider in the dirt. JBJ's loading and toe tapping is so complex, that he can't even catch up to breaking balls. They are both lost up there and I hope that it's not doing permanent damage to their development. 

 
This is something I have been wondering about also, although I think it is a difficult situation to assess due to Colbrunn's health issues. 

 

[Doooweeeey!]

If I were his manager my message from a psychology standpoint would be something like:  "Your season stats start today.  See what you can in the next 50 games, that's your measure."
 
Light a fire, but a competitive one, not a "you need to hit .400 so your season stats get to something not terrible"

 
 

 
I hate this idea.  Do we really think JBJ isn't trying hard enough such that his "fire" needs to be re-lit?  Allowing him to re-set at AAA, then come up and (one hopes) have a positive September seems like the better approach. 

 
These two strategies need not be exclusive of each other.  
There's the "messaging" (how the manager frames it for the player) and the message (here's what the ball club is going to do).
Some elements of both are relevant in this situation.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

It was a pretty common expression when I played, obviously a pretty boorish euphemism for a grooved fastball. 

Solid.

 

[Al Zarilla]

Watching the Rays - A's game and they talked about how well Josh Reddick has been hitting since coming back from the DL (really well). The one change color commentator Shooty Babbitt mentioned he's seen from Reddick was that he eliminated his toe tap. Sounds familiar. Just for the record, the A's hitting coach, whom I've seen lusted after here, is Chili Davis. I know, Shooty isn't the sharpest sounding announcer, but between his comment and Kruk's picking up the toe tap (and other bad stuff) last night with JBJ, someone needs to get the 2 by 4 on the donkey logic going on Farrell. Or, send him an email on the evils of toe-tapping. Problem might be that during the improvement JBJ did show for a while, he was probably using the wide open stance, the toe tap and the knee turn-in thing. So, maybe he thinks that approach got him out of his funk and he's hesitant to give it up. That's far too much activity though for any hitter. The one run the A's have was produced by a single by Reddick and a double by Lowrie. Red Sox West. Another HR off Samardzija but he's been overall good.
 
A streaker must have run out on the field. Delay, crowd cheering, no camera on the person.

 

[Night of the Keyboard]

JBJ with 1 HR and 100 K. Don't see that very often.
I'm sympathetic of Colbrunn's medical situation, but am hard pressed to see an argument as to why he or Rodriguez should return.

I was curious as to whether the 100 to 1 is a record. I couldn't find an articles regarding this topic, but I checked the stats of anemic hitters I remember such as Dale Maxvill and Johnny LeMaster. The worst rate for over 100K I could find was Mark Belanger who hit 2 homers vs 114K in 1965.

 

[Devizier]

Bradley really may just be a Darren Lewis-type player, which is great as long as Jimy isn't managing the team.

 

[LondonSox]

How are you so sure Betts works out when you point out that JBJ's pedigree was just as strong before getting here?

 
JBJ had success but never had the sort of golden god of prospect watching stats that Betts has put up.
Specifically More BB than K consistently and also in his case more XBH than K as well. And then speed on top of that.
 
There are not a lot of good prospects that have a history of those statistics who don't pan out.
For example that is why the statisically minded prospect watchers always loved Pedey, while the traditional scouts laughed at the height and wild swing etc.
 
Betts even at 19 in LowA had a 32BB to 30 K ratio
Age 20 across A and High A 81BB to 57k (55XBH)
This year aged 21, moving rapidly up to AA and then up and down on the shuttle, 55BB 43K (39 XBH)
 
JBJ overall did have a BB > K ratio in 2012, but it's been falling at every level
52BB to 40k in Salem
35BB to 49K in AA
41BB to 75K in AAA last year
 
This year it's 29BB to 101K
So the concern would be that this has been trending the wrong way, positional need and his fanastic fielding gave him this chance, but it does look like he has not been able to keep some core skills to the same level as he moved up.
I think JBJ is messed up, rahter than incapable. Get a hitting coach who works for him, or send him down. Both make sense at this point.
 
I (personally) would have as many hitting coaches as I needed, it's small potatoes vs the return of having the right guy for each person. Or at least one focused on the kids coming up and not on the vets. It's not the same.
 
Anyway, the big question on Betts is still (though increasingly looking less questionable) is the power.
And now he's not at 2B the defensive outfield questions will remain until proved. But I'd be shocked if he didn't have a solid average and a good OBP after some adjustment period.
If he does that AND the power stays he's an elite player. If he can do all that and play the outfield and infield. Better still.

 

[glennhoffmania]

I suggest everyone stop engaging with the same tired argument and watch this again. This is the JBJ thread:
 
http://deadspin.com/red-sox-outfielder-jackie-bradley-jr-lays-out-for-a-m-1602720126

 
I know this was posted almost a month ago, but I just went back and watched it again.  Just look at how quickly he reacts to this ball off the bat, and then think of what Ellsbury would've done in the same situation.  Bradley is a ridiculously good OF.

 

[OttoC]

I was curious as to whether the 100 to 1 is a record. I couldn't find an articles regarding this topic, but I checked the stats of anemic hitters I remember such as Dale Maxvill and Johnny LeMaster. The worst rate for over 100K I could find was Mark Belanger who hit 2 homers vs 114K in 1965.

 
From bb-ref's Play Index"
 
[tablegrid=  ]Player SO HR Year Billy Maloney 116 0 1906 Manuel Lee 107 0 1991 Gary Pettis 125 1 1985 Pat Listach 124 1 1992 Gary Pettis 124 1 1987 Vince Coleman 115 1 1985 Chone Figgins 114 1 2010 Grover Gilmore 108 1 1914 Gary Pettis 106 1 1989 Willie Wilson 106 1 1988 Danny Hoffman 105 1 1905 Omar Moreno 103 1 1983 Bob Meacham 102 1 1985 Jackie Bradley 101 1 2014 Bill Bruton 100 1 1953 Michael Bourn 140 2 2011 Cito Gaston 117 2 1969 Gary Pettis 115 2 1984 Bill Almon 114 2 1977 Mark Belanger 114 2 1968 Everth Cabrera 110 2 2012 Michael Bourn 109 2 2010 Royce Clayton 105 2 2005 Omar Moreno 104 2 1978 Omar Moreno 101 2 1980 Eric Young 100 2 2013 Cory Sullivan 100 2 2006 [/tablegrid] 

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

 
I hate this idea.  Do we really think JBJ isn't trying hard enough such that his "fire" needs to be re-lit?  Allowing him to re-set at AAA, then come up and (one hopes) have a positive September seems like the better approach. 

 
If a player is in a slump, sending them down to AAA doesn't automatically mean they'll start hitting again, especially if the problem is mechanical.
 
If you think a player has lost his confidence in the pro's, how much do you think it'll fuck him up if he can't fix a hitch in his swing in AAA over the next month? Hell, what happens if he goes down and rakes in AAA, but comes back up and slumps again ("I can't hit MLB level pitching!")?
 
Yo-Yo'ing a player around the system can cause more problems then it fixes. Players don't always "reset" when they get sent down. 

 

[TheRooster]

I'm not sure sending him down after 350 AB and 4 months qualifies as "yo yo'ing."  Going to AAA to regain confidence against lesser competition is a reasonable suggestion.  There is risk, but there is also risk in having him continue to flounder.  I sincerely hope he gets competent because his D is valuable and exciting.

 

[Night of the Keyboard]

From bb-ref's Play Index"
 
[tablegrid=  ]Player SO HR Year Billy Maloney 116 0 1906 Manuel Lee 107 0 1991 Gary Pettis 125 1 1985 Pat Listach 124 1 1992 Gary Pettis 124 1 1987 Vince Coleman 115 1 1985 Chone Figgins 114 1 2010 Grover Gilmore 108 1 1914 Gary Pettis 106 1 1989 Willie Wilson 106 1 1988 Danny Hoffman 105 1 1905 Omar Moreno 103 1 1983 Bob Meacham 102 1 1985 Jackie Bradley 101 1 2014 Bill Bruton 100 1 1953 Michael Bourn 140 2 2011 Cito Gaston 117 2 1969 Gary Pettis 115 2 1984 Bill Almon 114 2 1977 Mark Belanger 114 2 1968 Everth Cabrera 110 2 2012 Michael Bourn 109 2 2010 Royce Clayton 105 2 2005 Omar Moreno 104 2 1978 Omar Moreno 101 2 1980 Eric Young 100 2 2013 Cory Sullivan 100 2 2006 [/tablegrid]

Thanks, it's an interesting list. Most of them were GG and/or base stealers. In 1970, Cito Gaston hit 29 homers and achieved a 907 OPS so a big turnaround is possible.

 

[HomeRunBaker]

Can we stop calling this a slump? Bradley's never hit major league pitching consistently ever......this is who he is right now. That is more concerning than a typical early season Stephen Drew-type slump when the player has a history of success.

I'm in favor or sending him down not so much for him to gain confidence but to play Betts everyday to see if he can be your everyday CF in 2015. This "slump" of Bradley is a great opportunity to do this and perhaps find a real gem in Betts.

 

[TomRicardo]

Can we stop calling this a slump? Bradley's never hit major league pitching consistently ever......this is who he is right now. That is more concerning than a typical early season Stephen Drew-type slump when the player has a history of success.

I'm in favor or sending him down not so much for him to gain confidence but to play Betts everyday to see if he can be your everyday CF in 2015. This "slump" of Bradley is a great opportunity to do this and perhaps find a real gem in Betts.

 
Betts would have to hit .850+ ops to match the difference between Bradley and his fielding.  Bradley is the best defensive CF in baseball at the moment.  Betts should be in AAA right now getting time at 3B, SS, 2B, RF, CF, LF.  He is doing nothing playing three games a week in Boston.

 

[lexrageorge]

There were really 3 Bradley's last season in AAA:
 
First 20 games after his initial demotion:  0.354/0.453/0.544/0.997.  
 
Next 25 games after his 7 game major league appearance in early June:  0.255/0.342/0.519/0.861
 
After that, he was called up for 4 games in Seattle.  Then sent back down for 35 games to close out the AAA season.
 
Final 35 games:  0.244/0.346/0.385/0.731
 
There was definitely a downward trend for him in AAA last season, so giving him some more at bats in AAA cannot hurt.  I would preferred that at the beginning of the season, but injuries and other issues conspired against that happening.  
 
I think we'd all be thrilled if that last slash line became his MLB production right now.