Jackie Bradley Jr., Boston Red Sox
March/April Stats: .406 OPS, .034 ISO, 0 homers, 5 RBI, good for a 7 wRC+ and -0.9 fWAR in 99 plate appearances
JBJ has never been an offensive dynamo during his big-league career, but he had taken strides in recent years to pair serviceable production with his stellar defense. That production has slowly fallen off since his 118 wRC+ and 5.3-fWAR performance in 2016, and he’s now gotten himself into quite a hole to start this year.
He’s one of the few qualified hitters with a higher ground-ball rate (59.3%) than Owings, but no qualified hitter in baseball has a lower line-drive rate than Bradley’s 8.5% mark.
The Boston outfielder has understandably struggled in virtually every situation thus far, but he’s really struggled against left-handed pitchers. That’s evidenced by his -35 wRC+ in that situation (his 26 wRC+ against righties isn’t much better). However, it hasn’t mattered if he’s hitting at home (9 wRC+) or on the road (7 wRC+).
About Matt Musico
Matt Musico currently manages Chin Music Baseball and contributes to The Sports Daily. His past work has been featured at numberFire, Yahoo! Sports and Bleacher Report. He’s also written a book and created an online class about how to get started as a sports blogger. You can sign up for his email newsletter here.
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