Massarotti: Can Jackie Bradley Jr. Maintain MVP-Like Pace?
BOSTON (CBS) -- Jackie Bradley has done this sort of thing before, so keep that in mind as the Red Sox inch toward the quarter-mile post of a thus far promising 2016 season. Late last summer, from Aug. 6 through Sept. 7, Bradley batted .424 with a 1.361 OPS during a 28-game stretch, compiling 32 RBI, 31 runs scored and a preposterous 24 extra-base hits, including 13 doubles, four triples, and seven home runs.
In the next 25 games, Bradley then batted .138 with a nearly three times as many strikeouts (27) as hits (11).
Streakiness is one thing.
What Bradley has been doing borders on bipolar.
In the end, the Red Sox will certainly take it if Bradley ends up somewhere in the middle because he is, after all, the No. 9 hitter in what looks like the youngest and most dynamic collection of positional players the Red Sox have had since the 1970s. With their three-game explosion against the Oakland A's, the Red Sox are now tied with the Chicago Cubs for the most runs scored in baseball, which means that Theo Epstein, somewhere, is smiling. Epstein drafted and signed many of these young Red Sox just as he drafted and signed many of the young Cubs, though that is a story for another day.
So here's the question: can Bradley possibly come close to keeping this up? For that matter, can Travis Shaw? Because somewhere in the bats of those two players may rest the key to just how good the Red Sox offense can be.
Fact: at the moment, the Red Sox have the highest OPS in the American League from the center field position, which means Bradley has been better than Mike Trout, the 2014 AL Most Valuable Player. Shaw, meanwhile, has given the Red Sox productivity at third base that ranks behind only Baltimore (Manny Machado), Detroit (Miguel Cabrera) and Toronto (Josh Donaldson). Donaldson and Machado finished a respective first and fourth in the AL Most Valuable Player Award balloting last season. Donaldson and Cabrera have won three of the last four AL MVPs.
Put it all together and here's where you end up: at the moment, Bradley and Shaw are performing like the players who have, combined, won the last four AL MVP awards.
If you thought this was possible entering this 2016 Red Sox season, well ... you're a blatant, conniving, manipulative liar. No one expected it. At least not like this. Bradley Jr. has played more like Griffey Jr., and Shaw has been worth the $19 million the Sox are paying Pablo Sandoval. And what is critical to remember is that Bradley and Shaw have done it from the left side, which has given the Red Sox a murderer's row of left-handed batters against right-handed pitching.
Again, remember: generally speaking, pitchers are about 70 percent right-handed. On any winning team, productivity against right-handed pitching is a must. Last year in the AL, the teams with the best records against right-handed pitching were, in order: Kansas City, Toronto, Houston, Texas and New York. Those five teams just happened to be the five that qualified for the playoffs, and top two met in the AL Championship Series. (Toronto obviously has a predominantly right-handed-hitting lineup, but their right-handers are among the very best in the league.)
Over the last two nights, the Red Sox obviously have beaten left-handed starters, an encouraging development given the fact that they started 0-3 against lefties. But that was likely to come. Entering this season, the best hitters in Boston's lineup were largely right-handed, from young to old, from Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts to Dustin Pedroia and Hanley Ramirez. Betts and Bogaerts had breakout seasons in 2015. Pedroia and Ramirez have track records. They were likely to hit.
But the lefties? That was a greater concern. We wondered if Shaw could replicate what he did at the end of the 2015 season. We wondered if Bradley could similarly maintain his bottom line. (Overall, he hit .249 last year.) Part of the reason Blake Swihart made sense at the beginning of the season is because he is a switch-hitter, which gave the Red Sox yet another option.
Ultimately, of course, Swihart went back to Triple-A for defensive reasons, and the truth is that the Red Sox have not missed his bat a lick. Christian Vazquez is obviously a better defensive player, but now that the euphoria over Vazquez has faded some – their ERA this month is a very mediocre (or slightly worse) 4.34 – here's the truth: the Red Sox have a .584 OPS at the catcher position that ranks 11th in the league. Entering last night, they were 13th. They can carry Vazquez because Bradley and Shaw have been so good.
Will that continue, at least sufficiently?
Impossible to know.
But the greatest key to the Boston offense may depend on it.
LISTEN: Tony Massarotti talks Jackie Bradley and Travis Shaw on the Baseball Reporters podcast for Wednesday, May 11:
