Red Sox Making Room For Jackie Bradley Jr by Cutting Ryan Sweeney?

The only real story of this year's spring training has been Jackie Bradley Jr. He was invited into Red Sox camp as one of the more promising prospects on the Red Sox and tore it up in Ft. Meyers. With David Ortiz on the DL the discussion started about possibly having Bradley up with the big club to start the season. This started a debate about sacrificing future value for immediate improvement that Red Sox fans are deeply divided on. BMack touched on this subject previously and with the Red Sox cutting utility outfielder Ryan Sweeney it seems like they're making the moves to have him on the opening day roster. The controversy comes into play when you consider accrued seasons in Major League Baseball and how they affect team control. If Bradley comes up and gets credit for a full season in the big leagues this gets the clock going on when he hits unrestricted free agency. It gets confusing, but if they leave him in the minors for long enough they can keep him under team control for an additional season. Supposedly, they can leave him in the minors for 11 days and bring him up after that and he won't be credited with a full season and the team control of Bradley will extend to 2019.

There have been some mixed opinions about what to do here. Some feel that Bradley isn't ready for the big leagues yet. Curt Schilling said that he doesn't think you should put too much weight on how a batter performs in spring training because pitchers are usually working out the kinks and stay away from their best pitches until the games actually matter. Although his spring training numbers have been staggering (.441 BA, .521 OBP), there's a bigger sample size to consider here. His numbers at AA Portland were good last season, but the fact of the matter is that he's never seen AAA pitching let alone big league pitching. It's easy to make the argument that Bradley could use some more seasoning and a more gradual transition to the big leagues. Boston can be a very unforgiving market to players with high expectations that don't deliver.

Some people feel that a smart baseball team should be thinking big picture and 11 games this season for 162 games in 2019 of a potential all-star seems like a good deal. This is compounded by the fact that Bradley is represented by Scott Boras, an agent notorious for having his clients complete their rookie contracts and hitting unrestricted free agency as soon as possible. After hitting the open market Boras makes a deal with the highest bidder, which is rarely the client's current club. It's unlikely that the Red Sox will be able to extend Bradley on a team friendly deal like they did with Dustin Pedroia and it's unlikely that he will re-sign with the Red Sox upon hitting free agency. It's very likely  that an accrued season now would literally cost the Red Sox a full 162 game season down the road.

Others feel like the Red Sox are being too smart for their own good and they should just put the best players on the field, business aspects be damned. A million things could happen between now and 2019. Bradley could have a career ending injury. The Red Sox could have another impressive minor league prospect center fielder ready to step into the position for Bradley. He could be the difference that pushes the Red Sox into the playoffs this season. Working the system to screw Bradley out of an accrued season and pushing back his payday could piss him off and sour relations with him for the next 6 seasons. The Sox could ride him while he's got the hot bat and Ortiz is out and drop him back down to the minors when he hits a slump and Ortiz is healthy again to still hang on to that extra season.

I think that any way you decide to go with this is a reasonable position to take on Bradley. Personally, I'd leave him in the minors to start the season. If Bradley turns out to be as good as people think he is that sounds like a pretty good trade to me