Jackie Bradley Jr. Joins Brewers’ Lineup

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Photo via Wikimedia Commons

With social distancing and a delayed minor league spring training, there are a few more vacant lockers than usual at American Family Fields of Phoenix. This week the Brewers will likely fill one of them, however, when Jackie Bradley Jr. officially joins the team as a free agent.

Bradley’s signing continues a couple of longstanding trends for the Brewers: Their tendency to make late additions to the roster and their willingness to acquire value first and worry about positional fit later. On the surface Bradley seems like an unlikely fit for the Brewers, a Gold Glove-winning center fielder for a team that just got their own Gold Glove-winning center fielder (Lorenzo Cain) back.

The Brewers, however, have stated that a move to clear their positional logjam is not imminent and they plan to find ways to play Bradley, Cain, Christian Yelich and Avisail Garcia despite having just three outfield spots and no universal designated hitter available. Here are a few reasons that it might work:

Rest

The Brewers are taking it slow with Lorenzo Cain this spring, keeping him out of the first week of Cactus League games. Cain, who turns 35 in April, played just five games in 2020 before opting out and had a difficult offensive season in 2019, where his production dipped in nearly every category. He played 140 or more games in four of the five seasons from 2015-19, but it’s possible he’ll be better served by getting some extra rest in the late years of his career. On days when he’s not in the lineup the Brewers defense shouldn’t miss a beat with Bradley taking his place in center.

Similarly, Avisail Garcia had played just 45 games in center field across eight MLB seasons before the Brewers sent him out there 44 times in 2020. He held his own defensively but the extra wear and tear of playing a challenging defensive position may have contributed to his diminished production at the plate, where his .659 on-base plus slugging was the lowest of his career. Garcia has been widely praised for losing almost 40 pounds over the winter, which could make it easier for him to avoid wearing down but getting some extra days off should help too.

Outfield Defense

There will almost certainly be days in 2020 where two former Gold Glove-winning center fielders are roving the outfield at the same time for the Brewers, a duo that can cover a lot of ground and make spectacular catches. 2021, as it turns out, might be an especially valuable time to have them out there.

In February Major League Baseball sent a memo to teams announcing their intention to make minor alterations to the baseball, altering an internal winding to make the ball slightly lighter and less “bouncy.” In addition, five more teams will join the Rockies, Diamondbacks, Mariners, Mets and Red Sox in storing their baseballs in a humidity-controlled area, which is also believed  to reduce the home run rate.

It’s unclear how substantial these changes will be, but any reduction in home runs will invariably result in an increase in balls in play in the outfield. The Brewers are now well positioned to turn many of those balls in play into outs and limit opponents’ ability to take extra bases on the others.

Value

It’s possible the Brewers’ decision to acquire Bradley reflects a decision to go “all in” on defense, but it’s more likely that they simply decided to add relatively inexpensive value.

Since having a career year in 2016 FanGraphs estimates that Bradley has been worth about 2.3 Wins Above Replacement on average over 162 games. The Brewers got him for a smaller financial commitment than what the Astros gave to outfielder Michael Brantley, who averages similar production and is four years older.

As was the case when the Brewers added Mike Moustakas (twice, actually), this is likely a case where the value of the available player made it worth it to have to answer some tough questions about playing time.

Roster Flexibility

It’s unclear how the Brewers will choose to construct their roster for the regular season, but now they’re unlikely to need a dedicated fifth outfielder very often. Having four established regular outfielders likely means they can get by with that group and someone like Mark Mathias, an infielder who can come cover a corner outfield spot in a pinch.

What the Brewers will do with that extra roster spot is anyone’s guess, but they’ll have no shortage of options. They could keep an extra reliever, a luxury they’ve often valued in the past and something that may be increasingly useful in 2021 as they work to avoid overextending pitchers. They also could opt to keep an extra infielder or catcher to ease their end-of-spring roster crunch or keep someone like Daniel Vogelbach as a dedicated pinch hitter and DH for interleague play. In fact, it’s most likely that at one point or another this year they’ll do all of those things, and Bradley makes it easier to do so.