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ALEX SPEIER

Jackie Bradley Jr. and the risk of regret at the trade deadline

Jackie Bradley Jr. has hit 17 homers so far this season.Jim Davis/Globe Staff/Globe Staff

ANAHEIM, Calif. — It’s no longer abstract. The Aug. 1 trade deadline now dominates all teams’ field of vision, with little more than 48 hours left to navigate the collision of past and future.

It is a hard thing to weigh the value of incremental improvement in the short-term against the long-term sense of possibility. As much as there is strength in identifying areas of organizational deficiency and addressing them, the ability to understand a prospect for what he can become likewise represents a franchise-altering skill.

If the Red Sox need a reminder about the potential hazards of a short-term upgrade to the fringes of the roster, they need look no further than to the player patrolling centerfield for them. After all, the opportunities to deal Jackie Bradley Jr. were frequent in recent seasons.

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On Friday, in the Red Sox’ 6-2 win over the Angels, Bradley crunched his 17th homer of the season, smashing an elevated curveball from Tim Lincecum and driving it over the fence in right. He is on pace to launch 27 homers this year. He is hitting .298 with a .376 OBP (7th in the AL), .548 slugging percentage (7th in the AL), and a .924 OPS (5th in the AL). Bradley’s offensive production, meanwhile, is accompanied by game-changing centerfield defense. The 2016 All-Star continues to perform at an elite level.

In short, it is safe to say the Red Sox are relieved they did not deal Bradley when other teams viewed him as a fair player to request in exchange for bullpen help. “Quite a few” teams expressed interest in Bradley in 2014 and 2015, noted Red Sox GM Mike Hazen. Most of them, however, thought Bradley was a reasonable return for bullpen help. The Red Sox resisted the temptation to sell low at a time when Bradley’s ability to hold his own offensively at the big league level was in question.

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“Ultimately, we believed that he was going to hit. We certainly knew he was going to be an elite defender. Nothing really made sense for us to do at the time,” said Hazen. “Nobody was valuing him as an everyday player. That was the problem. We always did. Maybe at some point, if he had been valued as he should have been, we would have talked about it, but nobody did, so we didn’t do it.”

The Red Sox are now being rewarded for that stance, as Bradley continues to represent a foundational piece of what has positioned the Sox to be buyers at this year’s deadline. Within games, he continues to make the sort of small adjustments that have permitted him to sustain standout production.

Entering his third plate appearance on Friday, he was amidst an 0-for-11 stumble. Yet there was not panic. Instead, Bradley employed a plan that diverged from any he’d used before this year to drill a 2-1 curveball into the seats.

“I was sitting on curveball. He threw me a first-pitch curveball for a ball, then I took two fastballs — one was a strike, one was a ball. That was probably the first time I sat on an offspeed pitch all year. I took a chance, took a gamble, and I was rewarded for it,” said Bradley. “At that particular point in the game, I had seen a lot of curveballs, a lot of offspeed pitches. The percentages of me getting one were pretty high, especially since they had gotten me out on it in previous at-bats. Usually when they get you out on it, they feel like they can continually throw it to get you out. I took a calculated risk and was able to put a good swing on it.”

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The ability to change course and adapt helps explain Bradley’s sustained production this year. He has arrived as a confident, mature hitter for whom offensive contributions are now an expectation rather than a surprise.

Bradley is hitting .301/.375/.587 against righties and .290/.380/.441 against lefties. His OPS has been above .800 in every month of the season. He has been a force at Fenway (.971 OPS) while delivering very strong performances on the road (.853 OPS). His steady contributions have allowed him to make a far greater impact on the Sox’ postseason chances than any player for whom the Sox had an opportunity to trade him in recent years.

In that sense, Bradley represents the tension that makes the trade deadline so fascinating. A reminder of the importance of a team valuing its own prospects properly to prevent a short-term need from transforming into a long-term regret.


Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter@alexspeier.