Bradley: Deal with It.

[Jeff Van GULLY]

It isn't terribly hard to get a solid rotation of all these players in for the Red Sox.  Assuming the Sox want Hanley to play as much as possible and Ortiz as well you could do this to give every player a good amount of games each week.  Of course, this is also assuming a game is played every day, which is actually in the cards for the Red Sox as their next off-day is in 10 days.  I tried to give each player at least three days in the lineup in a row to give them some 'regular' ABs.
 
[tablegrid= OF/DH Red Sox Rotation ] Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday   Games per week ORTIZ DH DH DH   DH DH DH   6 RAMIREZ LF LF LF DH   LF LF   6 BETTS CF CF CF CF CF   CF   6 BRADLEY RF RF   LF LF CF RF   6 CASTILLO     RF RF RF RF     4                                       28 [/tablegrid]
 
This easily could be adjusted to get Castillo and Bradley each 5 games and if the Sox were comfortable benching Ortiz 2 games a week or Hanley 2 games a week, that's even better. And heck this is generic, not even considering L/R matchups or historical numbers vs. pitchers.
 
Pretty lazy of Lovullo in my mind to say Bradley/Castillo have to split ABs in RF.

 
 
So here is the actual rotation 1 week in.  Only thing that would stand out is Bradley vs. LHP Duffy with Castillo sitting and then the inverse vs. Cueto.  Not only due to the L/L and R/R but also because it gave Castillo only one game in a row.  However, Bradley went 1/4 with a triple and Castillo went 2/4 with a triple in those games, both wins.  De Aza played LF on 8/19. 
 
It's clear Lovullo is trying to get each OF at least two games in a row, for the most part.  IMO Bradley deserves more than 4 starts a week and hopefully this bumps up.  No indication that Ortiz will be sitting.
 
[tablegrid= Actual DH/OF Rotation ]Date 8/18/2015 8/19/2015 8/20/2015 8/21/2015 8/22/2015 8/23/2015 8/24/2015   Games per Week Opp. SP (L/R) Bauer (R) Kluber (R) Duffy (L) Cueto (R) Ventura (R) Volquez (R) Samardzija (R)     ORTIZ DH DH DH DH DH DH DH   7 RAMIREZ LF   LF LF LF   LF   5 BETTS CF   CF CF CF CF CF   6 BRADLEY   CF RF   RF LF     4 CASTILLO RF RF   RF   RF RF   5                                       27 [/tablegrid]
 
 
It will be interesting to see how this rotation continues as the Red Sox have a consistent off-day every Thursday for the next month.  Six games a week going forward, beginning the 28th.
 
Lastly, five of the next six scheduled opposing pitchers are RHPs so there is some similarity with the past week in those terms and I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar rotation.

 

[Toe Nash]

His history seems to show that it's rare for him to bet on the wrong guy.

Even if true, there may be a difference between guys that he and his hires have scouted, drafted, and developed and guys he's only watched closely for a couple months.

 

[Fireball Fred]

Bradley's playing LF because the Sox don't want to move the other guys, and he's playing to see if he can hit. If he hits, the Sox have two cheap starting CFs, and one of those (JBJ) gets you a starting pitcher in trade. I'd like to see JBJ in RF, but Castillo has much less potential trade value.

 

[Pumpsie]

I fail to see why the Sox are seen as so heavily invested in Hanley Ramirez.  An outfield of Castillo, Betts and Bradley might be the best way to go.  If the Sox are interested in trading HanRam in the offseason, they would want to play him a lot and hope he gets hot.  They would kill his trade value if they sat him.  Same with Panda.

 

[soxhop411]

jesus
 
Red Sox Stats ‏@redsoxstats  7m7 minutes ago
Felger and Mazz insinuating Jackie Bradley is on steroids.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

jesus
 
Red Sox Stats ‏@redsoxstats  7m7 minutes ago
Felger and Mazz insinuating Jackie Bradley is on steroids.

 
That seems to be their default explanation for any good athlete having success.  Pedro was on roids, Ortiz is on roids, JBJ is on roids.  Trolls gotta troll.

 

[nvalvo]

jesus
 
Red Sox Stats ‏@redsoxstats  7m7 minutes ago
Felger and Mazz insinuating Jackie Bradley is on steroids.

 
If that's the case, he's been on steroids since at least his sophomore season at UNC, and then all through the minors until he inexplicably stopped last year.  :c070:

 

[shaggydog2000]

 
If that's the case, he's been on steroids since at least his sophomore season at UNC, and then all through the minors until he inexplicably stopped last year.  :c070:

 
My favorite reply to steroid accusations was from Brady Anderson, who said something to the effect of:
 
"If I took steroids to hit 50 home runs that one year, what happened?  Did they stop working, or did I just stop taking them?"
 
And he's right, that's not a good way to explain a one season outlier.  Maybe a significant change in body type and lasting change in performance could be explained that way, but one year flukes are probably one year flukes.  And in the case of Bradley, a few weeks with an ISO over 200 is probably just a random fluke, since he's never even done that in the minors except for a 15 AB stint in A ball.  

 

[CarolinaBeerGuy]

 
My favorite reply to steroid accusations was from Brady Anderson, who said something to the effect of:
 
"If I took steroids to hit 50 home runs that one year, what happened?  Did they stop working, or did I just stop taking them?"
 
And he's right, that's not a good way to explain a one season outlier.  Maybe a significant change in body type and lasting change in performance could be explained that way, but one year flukes are probably one year flukes.  And in the case of Bradley, a few weeks with an ISO over 200 is probably just a random fluke, since he's never even done that in the minors except for a 15 AB stint in A ball.  

The problem with this analogy is that it's widely assumed that Brady Anderson was on steroids.

 

[ALiveH]

I guess the most glaring contrast to the fluke season or SSS example is Barry Bonds averaging 52 HRs per year over 5 years at ages 35-39.  Wade Boggs also had the one flukey 24 HR outlier year.

 

[shaggydog2000]

The problem with this analogy is that it's widely assumed that Brady Anderson was on steroids.

 
Yeah, everyone assumes that.  But if they worked so well, why would he stop taking them?  Or did he keep taking them and they just never worked again?  Neither answer makes all that much sense.  It's also not like he changed enormously in body shape the way known users like Canseco, Bonds, and McGwire did.  All athletic dudes that became enormous.  Anderson was pretty much the same shape before and after that year, so how did the steroids help him?  Usually the explanation is that you put on more muscles, but how much muscle makes you go from an 18 hr guy to a 50 HR guy?  10 lbs?  30 lbs?  If Bonds had to change from Wesley Snipes body in major League to Wesley Snipes body in Blade to go from 40 HR to 73, how could Anderson add 30+ HR without looking much different?  And how come his doubles rate pretty much stayed the same?  Wouldn't that go up too on steroids? 
 
Sometimes people have fluke years, it happens.  BABIP can cause batting averages to spike, HR/FB luck can cause a huge HR year, etc.  Anderson was just one of those dudes, a good player with some power who just got lucky for 580 ABs one year.  I understand that lax testing for such a long time, and the horrible understanding of biology and math that sports writers regularly exhibit conspire to create suspicion about any outlier, but the Anderson thing in particular doesn't hold water.  

 

[threecy]

jesus
 
Red Sox Stats ‏@redsoxstats  7m7 minutes ago
Felger and Mazz insinuating Jackie Bradley is on steroids.

Are they suggesting steroids closed his stance and got rid of the toe tap?  Because that's the thing that's driving his results.

 

[mt8thsw9th]

 
If that's the case, he's been on steroids since at least his sophomore season at UNC, and then all through the minors until he inexplicably stopped last year.  :c070:

 
Did they also say he went to UNC? Damn.

 

[Seels]

Guys do you not get Felger is just a contrarian / heel and Mazz is the good ol reputable moron?

I don't understand how people listen to them unless they want to get worked up. Felger isn't dumb, he's just a gimmick just like Skip Bayless.

 

[glennhoffmania]

I guess the most glaring contrast to the fluke season or SSS example is Barry Bonds averaging 52 HRs per year over 5 years at ages 35-39.  Wade Boggs also had the one flukey 24 HR outlier year.

 
Off topic but I think I remember a quote from Boggs after that season when asked how he managed to hit 24 homers.  He said something like, I just wanted to show people that I could.

 

[E5 Yaz]

We're actually letting Felger and Mazz twaddle take this thread down this road?

 

[HomeRunBaker]

The problem with this analogy is that it's widely assumed that Brady Anderson was on steroids.

The real problem is that someone is arguing that he wasn't.

There are plenty of reasons why someone would discontinue using steroids. Do we really have to list them? Brady's body made massive changes prior to reverting back to what it was years prior to his physical changes and 50 HR season.

 

[nvalvo]

 
Did they also say he went to UNC? Damn.

Ah, yes. Wrong Carolina.

 

[Soxfan in Fla]

Ah, yes. Wrong Carolina.

Wasn't it Clemson

 

[PaulinMyrBch]

Wasn't it Clemson

There are a few Gamecocks I'm OK with, he's one of them.
 

 

[jscola85]

 
Off topic but I think I remember a quote from Boggs after that season when asked how he managed to hit 24 homers.  He said something like, I just wanted to show people that I could.

 
Don't doubt the man one bit if that's what he said - similar to what folks in Seattle said about Ichiro having 30 HR pop if he wanted to show it off, but as a leadoff hitter he felt his best role was to get on base as much as possible.  Like Ichiro, Boggs was one of those rare talents who could do just about whatever he wanted with a bat in his hand.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

 
Don't doubt the man one bit if that's what he said - similar to what folks in Seattle said about Ichiro having 30 HR pop if he wanted to show it off, but as a leadoff hitter he felt his best role was to get on base as much as possible.  Like Ichiro, Boggs was one of those rare talents who could do just about whatever he wanted with a bat in his hand.

 
Just as an aside, this has always driven me crazy. If you can hit home runs, you should, because a home run is always the best thing that can possibly happen. I remember that Boggs quote and it seemed to be rooted in that old-school, silly train of thought that exalts average hitters (aka "pure" hitters) as superior (aesthetically, and almost morally) to those big galoots who hit bombs.
 
Now, if hitting home runs requires you to alter your approach so much that you're drastically reducing your contact and plate discipline, so that your OBP plummets, maybe that's a bad thing. But that's not necessarily going to be the case. Boggs, in his 24-HR year, had the second-highest OBP and BB% of his career, and his K rate was only 0.3% above his career average.
 
So, if you can really do just about whatever you want with a bat in your hand, and you choose as a matter of policy not to hit home runs, you're hurting the team, full stop.

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

 
Just as an aside, this has always driven me crazy. If you can hit home runs, you should, because a home run is always the best thing that can possibly happen. I remember that Boggs quote and it seemed to be rooted in that old-school, silly train of thought that exalts average hitters (aka "pure" hitters) as superior (aesthetically, and almost morally) to those big galoots who hit bombs.
 
Now, if hitting home runs requires you to alter your approach so much that you're drastically reducing your contact and plate discipline, so that your OBP plummets, maybe that's a bad thing. But that's not necessarily going to be the case. Boggs, in his 24-HR year, had the second-highest OBP and BB% of his career, and his K rate was only 0.3% above his career average.
 
So, if you can really do just about whatever you want with a bat in your hand, and you choose as a matter of policy not to hit home runs, you're hurting the team, full stop.

Well .. His 24 HR year was 1987 .. A year in which offense jumped up notably (possibly due to juiced baseballs from a new manufacturer)

 

[smastroyin]

1985 AL: 2178 HR, .145 ISO
1986 AL: 2290 HR, .146 ISO
1987 AL: 2634 HR, .160 ISO
1988 AL: 1901 HR, .132 ISO
1989 AL: 1718 HR, .123 ISO
1990 AL: 1796 HR, .129 ISO
 
It's entirely possible that most years, Boggs trying to hit HR would affect his other peripherals, and his quote was more hubris than anything.  And while I take your point, he was likely also responding to all of the criticism of him that he was just a punch and judy hitter because he didn't hit HR.  I suppose it is possible that he could have hit 20-25 HR per year in his prime while maintaining everything else (maybe swapping out 8-12 2B for those HR) but I think if it was that easy he would have actually done it.  In 88 and 89 he led the league in doubles while only hitting 8 HR between those two years, so the suggestion would have to be that he could control how the ball flew off his bat so precisely?  

 

[jscola85]

 
Just as an aside, this has always driven me crazy. If you can hit home runs, you should, because a home run is always the best thing that can possibly happen. I remember that Boggs quote and it seemed to be rooted in that old-school, silly train of thought that exalts average hitters (aka "pure" hitters) as superior (aesthetically, and almost morally) to those big galoots who hit bombs.
 
Now, if hitting home runs requires you to alter your approach so much that you're drastically reducing your contact and plate discipline, so that your OBP plummets, maybe that's a bad thing. But that's not necessarily going to be the case. Boggs, in his 24-HR year, had the second-highest OBP and BB% of his career, and his K rate was only 0.3% above his career average.
 
So, if you can really do just about whatever you want with a bat in your hand, and you choose as a matter of policy not to hit home runs, you're hurting the team, full stop.

 
Oh I don't disagree, and I am sure some of it is just talk and not actually the case, but guys do seem to occasionally take drastically different approaches depending on where they hit in the lineup.  I believe Pedroia has struggled as a leadoff hitter in the past, but Fangraphs also recently did a lengthy article about the improvements Michael Brantley made once the Indians moved him into more of a "run producer" spot in the lineup than a "table setter" spot.
 

 
 
It looks like swinging on fastballs in early fastball counts has been enough for Brantley to display more power. And it all came mostly because of a change in team role. “Time to get aggressive, time for a different mindset,” the outfielder said, “since I was hitting in the three hole and driving in runs and not thinking as much getting on base like I was in the leadoff spot.”

 
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/michael-brantley-and-aggression/

 

[DJnVa]

 “since I was hitting in the three hole and driving in runs and not thinking as much getting on base like I was in the leadoff spot.”
 

 
And yet his OBP increased...

 

[chrisfont9]

 
Yeah, everyone assumes that.  But if they worked so well, why would he stop taking them?   

Because they're horrible for you.

 

[joe dokes]

Wade Boggs also had the one flukey 24 HR outlier year
 

Everyone had a flukey outlier HR year in 1987.

 

[shaggydog2000]

Because they're horrible for you.

 
So he was willing to take them all year for his 50 hr year, but then the next year, his contract year, he decided it was probably bad for him and stopped, even though they were working so well and enormous money was on the line?  I don't have any particular attachment to Brady Anderson, he's just another guy to me. For all I know he juiced his whole career, and I don't really care if he did. I just don't like how any outlier gets tagged as steroid related during that era, when sheer luck comes into it as well.  Today we could look at HR distance, and HR/FB numbers and be able to tell if he suddenly added a suspicious 30 ft to his HR distance, which I would find impossible without outside aid, or if he just hit them the same distance and had an unusual  high HR/FB rate just based on chance, especially when all his other stats stayed pretty much the same, including doubles.  Guys suddenly having multiple career years after 35 and having heads the size of Volkswagens clearly deserve suspicion.  One off flukes in a single stat are probably just one off flukes.  
 
As for Ichiro, a lot of people made a big deal of him hitting home runs in batting practice, but game power and batting practice power are considerably different things, and Ichiro may not have been able to hit home runs with his swing against real major league competition the same way he hit them in BP.  

 

[dbn]

On August 15th Bradley went 5 for 6 with a double and two HRs, on a horrible day for Seattle pitching which allowed 22 runs. 
 
Glancing at his stats, it seems he has indeed been hitting better lately, but if one removes that game (sure, cherry picking, but not entirely as SEA pitching gave up 22 runs that day), how do his recent stats look? Honest question. I should calculate it myself and will do so if I have a chance before someone else does.
 
FTR, I'm a Bradley fan, and want him to hit well, and make amazing plays in the field for a long time in a Red Sox uniform. I just don't want to get over-optimistic if SSS plus one crazy day is skewing my perception.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

On August 15th Bradley went 5 for 6 with a double and two HRs, on a horrible day for Seattle pitching which allowed 22 runs. 
 
Glancing at his stats, it seems he has indeed been hitting better lately, but if one removes that game (sure, cherry picking, but not entirely as SEA pitching gave up 22 runs that day), how do his recent stats look? Honest question. I should calculate it myself and will do so if I have a chance before someone else does.
 
FTR, I'm a Bradley fan, and want him to hit well, and make amazing plays in the field for a long time in a Red Sox uniform. I just don't want to get over-optimistic if SSS plus one crazy day is skewing my perception.

 
Since his call-up on July 29, he's slashing .311/.395/.649 in 24 games (86 PA).  Taking out the 8/15 game against Seattle, and his slash line is .265/.363/.500.  Still pretty solid for an 80 PA sample.

 

[Hank Scorpio]

Red(s)HawksFan beat me to it, but I calculated a different sample.
 
In August, excluding the Seattle game, he's still posting a .293/.391/.568/.960 slash line.

 

[dbn]

 
Since his call-up on July 29, he's slashing .311/.395/.649 in 24 games (86 PA).  Taking out the 8/15 game against Seattle, and his slash line is .265/.363/.500.  Still pretty solid for an 80 PA sample.

 
 

Red(s)HawksFan beat me to it, but I calculated a different sample.
 
In August, excluding the Seattle game, he's still posting a .293/.391/.568/.960 slash line.

 
Thanks for picking me up for my lazy posting. 

 

[HomeRunBaker]

 
So he was willing to take them all year for his 50 hr year, but then the next year, his contract year, he decided it was probably bad for him and stopped, even though they were working so well and enormous money was on the line?  I don't have any particular attachment to Brady Anderson, he's just another guy to me. For all I know he juiced his whole career, and I don't really care if he did. I just don't like how any outlier gets tagged as steroid related during that era, when sheer luck comes into it as well.  Today we could look at HR distance, and HR/FB numbers and be able to tell if he suddenly added a suspicious 30 ft to his HR distance, which I would find impossible without outside aid, or if he just hit them the same distance and had an unusual  high HR/FB rate just based on chance, especially when all his other stats stayed pretty much the same, including doubles.  Guys suddenly having multiple career years after 35 and having heads the size of Volkswagens clearly deserve suspicion.  One off flukes in a single stat are probably just one off flukes.[/]
 

Wouldn't Brady having ONE career year in a summer where his body was ready to compete in a Mr. Olympia contest deserve suspicion?

 

[nighthob]

Wouldn't Brady having ONE career year in a summer where his body was ready to compete in a Mr. Olympia contest deserve suspicion?

 
How dare you doubt that this guy was only powered by grandma's beefsteak and lifting weights?
 

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

 
Don't doubt the man one bit if that's what he said - similar to what folks in Seattle said about Ichiro having 30 HR pop if he wanted to show it off, but as a leadoff hitter he felt his best role was to get on base as much as possible.  Like Ichiro, Boggs was one of those rare talents who could do just about whatever he wanted with a bat in his hand.

Ron Fairly and Rick Rizzs used to say that about Ichiro, but I never bought it. The M's batted him third for awhile (as Orix did in Japan), but it didn't change what he did at the plate.

And make no mistake, Ichiro didn't care about "getting on base," per se. He cared about getting hits. The counting stat, not batting average. He wanted to get 200 hits as early as he could and then goose that number. His plate discipline was all but non-existent. There is film from Japan of him swinging at a ball that bounced in front of the plate (and putting it into play). If only the Japanese played cricket...

Boggs came to Seattle with TB in 2001 and said he was excited to see Ichiro. After the game, his comments were diplomatic, but he made it clear he was a different sort of player.

 

[Reverend]

What is it about JBJ that makes people nearly incapable of talking about him rather than any number of other players and things in his own thread?

 

[Rasputin]

What is it about JBJ that makes people nearly incapable of talking about him rather than any number of other players and things in his own thread?

 
He's done everything anyone could want and the only question is whether he can continue it which, so far, he has. 
 
So there's really nothing to say about him at the moment.

 

[m0ckduck]

On August 15th Bradley went 5 for 6 with a double and two HRs, on a horrible day for Seattle pitching which allowed 22 runs. 
 
Glancing at his stats, it seems he has indeed been hitting better lately, but if one removes that game (sure, cherry picking, but not entirely as SEA pitching gave up 22 runs that day), how do his recent stats look? Honest question. I should calculate it myself and will do so if I have a chance before someone else does.
 
FTR, I'm a Bradley fan, and want him to hit well, and make amazing plays in the field for a long time in a Red Sox uniform. I just don't want to get over-optimistic if SSS plus one crazy day is skewing my perception.

 
So, basically, he was on steroids for that one day— Aug 15th— and then either stopped taking them or they stopped working. 

 

[smastroyin]

What is it about JBJ that makes people nearly incapable of talking about him rather than any number of other players and things in his own thread?

It's the reciprocal of when every thread in July turned into a conversation about him.

Or "regression to mean"

 

[DJnVa]

On August 15th Bradley went 5 for 6 with a double and two HRs, on a horrible day for Seattle pitching which allowed 22 runs. 
 
Glancing at his stats, it seems he has indeed been hitting better lately, but if one removes that game (sure, cherry picking, but not entirely as SEA pitching gave up 22 runs that day), how do his recent stats look? Honest question. I should calculate it myself and will do so if I have a chance before someone else does.

 

Are you asking if his stats would look worse if we remove his best game from the numbers? Yes. Yes they will.
 
If we take out the games of Aug 9, 11, 12, 14, and 15--one 5 game hot streak, he's 10/55 and hitting under .200 since his call up.

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

What about if we take out the games where he didn't get a good night's sleep the night before? THEN how do the stats look?

 

[Eddie Jurak]

If you take out all the games when Wade Boggs got at least 1 hit, then - shockingly - he batted .000 for his whole career! The naysayers were obviously right about him all along.

 

[threecy]

I don't believe JBJ's past statistics are indicative of future performance at this point.  Rather, moving forward, I suspect his statistics will mirror the change in his swing.
 
The bottom line is that his swing was badly flawed, but sheer athleticism allowed him to rise through the lower levels until he hit a wall in the MLB.  It robbed him of power, timing, and plate coverage.  With the talent he's displayed in the field and corrected swing, the original hopes of him becoming a good MLB hitter are back on the table.

 

[dbn]

 
Are you asking if his stats would look worse if we remove his best game from the numbers? Yes. Yes they will.
 
If we take out the games of Aug 9, 11, 12, 14, and 15--one 5 game hot streak, he's 10/55 and hitting under .200 since his call up.

 
 

What about if we take out the games where he didn't get a good night's sleep the night before? THEN how do the stats look?

 
 

If you take out all the games when Wade Boggs got at least 1 hit, then - shockingly - he batted .000 for his whole career! The naysayers were obviously right about him all along.

 
Oh come on, people.
 
edit to add substance: the question was clearly whether he was hitting consistently well or was his numbers skewed by one amazing day which, as everyone was crushing SEA's pitching that day, might not be very indicative of his baseline performance. It is a simple distributions question. In a SSS, one outlier that may have been affected by non-typical circumstances can give misleading interpretations if one only looks at averages, and not the entire distribution. I asked the question, two people answered it properly, indicating that his underlying - though still SSS - performance has been very good even excluding the outlier. That added something to the discussion (unlike any of the quoted posts).

 

[DJnVa]

Relax dude.
 
My post was a take off of yours---you asked if one hot day could skew things and if he was still hitting well. I expanded by showing what 5 hot days can do in such a SSS.

 

[chrisfont9]

 
So he was willing to take them all year for his 50 hr year, but then the next year, his contract year, he decided it was probably bad for him and stopped, even though they were working so well and enormous money was on the line?  I don't have any particular attachment to Brady Anderson, he's just another guy to me. For all I know he juiced his whole career, and I don't really care if he did. I just don't like how any outlier gets tagged as steroid related during that era, when sheer luck comes into it as well. 

Yeah, I know. PEDs are impossible to discuss in any useful way absent a confession. Who did what? Why? What was the impact? There's a lot we don't know about the clubhouse, but PEDs, even the guy's teammates and family members likely don't know. Maybe Anderson did take steroids for a year and then got spooked. Maybe some study came out, or he knew someone who got ill. Who knows? As you say, maybe he never took them and everything just clicked for a year. It sucks that we get left speculating about this shit. But we will NEVER know.

 

[chrisfont9]

It's the reciprocal of when every thread in July turned into a conversation about him.

Or "regression to mean"

that is awesome

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

I don't believe JBJ's past statistics are indicative of future performance at this point.  Rather, moving forward, I suspect his statistics will mirror the change in his swing.
 
The bottom line is that his swing was badly flawed, but sheer athleticism allowed him to rise through the lower levels until he hit a wall in the MLB.  It robbed him of power, timing, and plate coverage.  With the talent he's displayed in the field and corrected swing, the original hopes of him becoming a good MLB hitter are back on the table.

 
As a gloss on this: It seems like he has, until this recent breakout, had two main problems as a hitter:
 
1) Pitch recognition/selection issues--swinging at pitches he shouldn't or vice versa.
2) Quality of contact issues--having trouble hitting the ball hard with any consistency even when he did swing at the right pitch.
 
(1) is almost a given for young hitters; you expect to see it, and you hope it gets better with time and experience. It's (2) that has felt like the potential deal-breaker for JBJ, and it's (2) that he seems to have solved, or at least made major progress on, this year.
 
So while the recent breakout doesn't guarantee anything, it has removed what seemed (to me, anyway) like the main obstacle to projecting any kind of ML success for him. It feels like the question has shifted, in the past month, from "will he ever hit major league pitching well enough to stick?" to "how good a major league hitter can he be?". Even if the answer to the latter is far from certain, it's a nice question to be asking.

 

[dbn]

Relax dude.
 
My post was a take off of yours---you asked if one hot day could skew things and if he was still hitting well. I expanded by showing what 5 hot days can do in such a SSS.

 
Sorry, I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
 
I looked at his game-by-game distribution of results since his July 29th call-up, and while the Aug 15 game is one of his better performances, it is just at the high end of his distribution, as opposed to being an outlier (within as much as the SSS can tell us, which is not much, but also not nothing) . See attached figure. Sorry about the lack of labels, the abscissa is single-game OPS, the ordinate is # of occurrences. The binning is an arbitrary 0.2-worth of OPS.
 
The Aug 15 game isn't his best: in the Aug 9 win over Detroit he went 2-for-3 with triple, HR, and a BB.
 

(edit for some clarity)