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Shut him down!!

Trade him!!

Mookie is absolutely for sale, The Sox should try to move as many of Betts, Porcello, Cashner, Hembree, and maybe Barnes as possible. Pearce, Moreland and Holt are probably not worth trying to move.

For the record, Eovaldi is not the closer yet So other than give promises, Dombrowski has done nothing for the Sox bullpen all year other than add Colten Brewer...

Agreed. Dombrowski should sell and resign..,

No, The Sox do have a run.

Probably won’t make the decision after 1 IP

There are too many obvious questions that I’m going to avoid...

He waguespanked that one!!

Next time, borrow one of your kid’s diapers...

Not to mention, if JBJ is middle of the road this year, it’s because his offense was so abysmal the first 6 weeks of the season, the only comparable player (Chris Owings) in MLB was released. And Jackie’s salary and defense probably kept him from a similar fate...

While I agree he is a borderline major leaguer, I think this move was just to get fresher arms for the long run of games ahead. Brasier will be and Weber and/or Hernandez demoted at some point in the near future...

Yes and probably not..,

Different baseline, but same idea. WAR is to WAA like Kelvin is to Celsius...

And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Rock the Cashner is an awesome nickname..,

Bradley is the only one playing CF in Boston, but the other teams have not had that luxury. Bradley has played 737 innings in CF. TB’s Kiermeier is the only other AL East CF with as many as 600 innings in centerfield, and he still has fewer innings than Bradley by about 48. But he is crushing Bradley in OOZ plays - 61 to 40. Being flanked by players like Austin Meadows and Avisail Garcia is certainly a factor. More OOZ plays in fewer innings should at the very least contribute to a better rating, right? Now if Bradley was in Tampa and Kiermeier was in Boston, it’s very likely those numbers would be reversed...

I think fans think a player’s defense doesn’t fluctuate from year to year, but since for most our baseball-watching lives no one measured it, it was really just an assumption. Overall, his bad years listed above were also the years he made the fewest plays. Now they are not all distinctly different from the good ones, but they might be on a per inning basis relative to the rest of the league...

Is that the point? I don’t think it is. The point is actually that the Red Sox wouldn’t be any different with an AAAA centerfielder playing defense than they are with Bradley. And the reason is - stay with me here - hardly anything is being hit out there. If the Sox promoted, say, Cole Sturgeon to play CF, it would make very little difference defensively, because Bradley is one of the least involved centerfielders in the league. Not because he can’t get to anything, but because there just isn’t all that much to get to compared to his counterparts around the league...

The point was about the invention and acceptance of “new stats.” All conventional stats were new stats at one point. But even hits are somewhat subjective. A certain percentage do fall into the opinion of an official scorer. Defense in baseball has always been difficult to measure. And this system tries to standardize it as much as possible. Nothing is more subjective than the Eyeball Test. Nothing. Too often the Eyeball Test turns into “I saw that guy make an error once.” The defensive metrics try to mitigate a lot of the subjectivity by measuring balls hit into defined zones aka “the part of the field a player should cover.” Some things are difficult to account for, such as height of a flyball, etc. After all, the zone system was created for infielders, where some of these types of flaws are inherently accounted for. But not all. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than heavily weighted eyeball testing? Yes, in the same way that a car is better than a horse...

One of my favorites. Or Davey Lopes upon learning Gary Pettis and Rickey Henderson we’re minor league teammates. “They didn’t need a third outfielder.”

Almost all stats were invented by sportswriters, and all of them were created to try and separate the abilities and performances of players to some degree. Beach Rickey concocted slugging percentage because batting average didn’t distinguish between a 3 for 10 hitter with 3 singles from a 3 for 10 hitter with 2 home runs and a double. Many were skeptical and it took the BBWAA about 40 years to make it an official stat. This is all nothing new...

So... you want Jackie to get more credit for waiting? This type of discrepancy is handled when both fielders have a ball hit 70 feet to their left and Jackie gets to it on the run while CF X chases it to the wall. The bottom line for Bradley’s rating: 3rd in innings in CF 8 in plays made in zone 14th in plays out of zone The plays in zone and innings is the key. While he’s out there in CF more than nearly everyone else, 7 other center fielders, many with fewer innings, are making more routine plays. His balls in zone/inning within the zone are very low, probably among the worst in the league. This means Jackie is simply less involved defensively. If he is less involved defensively, the CFs making plays are getting (and deserve) more credit. Jackie’s Out Of Zone plays - the ones he has to run 50 or whatever feet to make - are 14th in the league. Now as we have already seen Bradley to be less involved within the zone, it’s not hard to grasp that the OOZ opportunities/inning are probably also low. And since Betts (4th in OOZ) is probably taking a few himself - and can only take them from Bradley - that diminishes his opportunities even more. So basically Bradley is not seeing the chances he needs to get the better UZR. Not his fault, but also not a flaw...

Actually what his WAR is saying this year is that since not as many balls are hit to CF against Boston, and because Betts is taking command of many plays, Bradley might be defensive overkill for this year’s Sox team. If the Sox had Kiermeier in CF, his defensive rating would suffer, too, due to the limited opportunities...

Well, hitting is enhanced by repetition. Which is one reason why we dismiss a player who is 3 for 10 as less than a hitter who is 30 for 100 with the caveat of “small sample size.” Now certainly it could be the case - one lucky hit, etc. But we don’t know if the hitting abilities are different. And we then resort to using past accomplishments in the form of statistics to draw a conclusion...

It’s not a flaw. If Bradley is less involved defensively, why should he receive more credit? It’s not his fault. It’s not necessarily a reflection of his ability. But how is it a flaw? If a hitter is on the bench, does it mean he’s a bad hitter? Example - Victor Caratini can hit. He’s shown it at every level. But he sits behind Willson Contreras and rarely plays. Does his lack of opportunity make him a worse hitter?