Betts’ move al-right
Bigger concern: JBJ’s offense
For all the discussion about the best Red Sox outfield alignment next season, interim manager Torey Lovullo summed up the team’s feelings about Mookie Betts in only 11 words.
“I think he’ll be fine no matter where we put him,” Lovullo said yesterday.
Indeed, after growing up as a shortstop and playing second base in the minor leagues, Betts made a nearly seamless, on-the-fly transition to center field during the second half of last season. So, although right field at Fenway Park presents unique challenges for any defender, the fact that Betts played there last night was noteworthy only because it was the first time it happened since Sept. 7 of last year.
Betts will stay in right field for the duration of the Red Sox’ weeklong final homestand, giving team officials, especially new president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, an opportunity to make evaluations. In all likelihood, though, he won’t get swallowed up by the deep right-field corner or pinched by the almost nonexistent foul territory near Pesky’s Pole. He has the range of a center fielder, so tracking balls hit toward the short bullpen wall shouldn’t be a problem. And while he doesn’t throw like Jackie Bradley Jr. (who does?), Betts’ arm strength has improved enough since last year that it will prevent opponents from taking advantage.
“He’s got great aptitude, great vision,” Lovullo said. “His hands and his feet go where his mind tells him too quickly, so we know it shouldn’t be as much of an issue. We’re going to give him the seven games in right field here so we can see the space he covers.”
What the Red Sox will probably find is that Betts can handle right field the same way he handled center, just like they discovered two years ago with Shane Victorino. A former Gold Glove center fielder, Victorino won the award in right field by helping the Red Sox win games with his defense.
The bigger question, as always, will be about Bradley’s offense and whether he can sustain enough production at the plate to warrant an everyday job.
Bradley batted .196 with a .268 on-base percentage in 530 plate appearances over the past two seasons and was 7-for-58 in 24 big league games this year before an Aug. 9 game in Detroit. Over the next 25 games, he went 37-for-83 (.446) with 24 extra-base hits and an otherworldly 1.441 OPS. But after a 4-for4 game Sept. 7, he fell into a 1-for-30 slump that ended with two hits, including a game-tying home run, Saturday in Toronto.
Nobody expected Bradley to bat .450 forever, and with the way he plays defense, he doesn’t have to hit even .270 to be an asset. It’s still fair, though, to wonder whether he can maintain an acceptable level of offense over an extended period. At this point, that’s probably a more reasonable question than whether Betts can handle a shift to right field.
“Everybody that’s been in this game or played this game has been part of something like that,” Lovullo said of Bradley’s 1-for-30 spell. “We know it’s very hard and challenging at times. The subtle things you look for when you pull back and you’re just getting beat by certain pitches, those are the little things that’ll show you when a player is getting totally overmatched. He didn’t have that quality at all. For me, it was just a matter of him getting a couple hits, maybe even one, to get the ball rolling. I think it’ll make him mature as a player, and he’s going to understand that you’re going to have those ups and downs.”
Lovullo suggested the Red Sox likely won’t draw any definitive conclusions about the outfield alignment before the end of the season, instead continuing the conversation into the winter. And let’s face it: A seven-game snapshot of Betts in Fenway’s right field probably isn’t enough to make an informed judgment anyway.
Dombrowski will have a larger sample size to come to a decision about Bradley’s offense, though that figures to be a trickier evaluation. Regardless, the question of whether the Red Sox are better off with Bradley in center and Betts in right, or vice versa, is a nice, little distraction.
Truth be told, that might be all it is.